According to Max Waddington, a senior analyst at Fidelity Digital Assets, AI agents could become a significant force in the digital assets sector, affecting everything from payments to trading and lending. However, the benefits from this shift will not be evenly distributed among market participants.
Increased AI Usage Among Developers
Fidelity's research involving over 100,000 GitHub developers revealed that the use of digital assistants has led to a remarkable increase in programming activity, with commits rising by as much as 180% and releases by 30%.
Source: Fidelity.Waddington pointed out that such tools enable smaller teams to develop and launch blockchain applications more quickly. However, he emphasized that critical financial software still requires manual code verification.
A similar trend was observed within the cryptocurrency industry itself. In 2026, as the prices of digital assets fell, both the number of developers and the volume of commits decreased, although the latter declined at a slower pace. Consequently, the average number of changes per developer continued to rise.
Nevertheless, an increase in the number of applications does not guarantee their success. Projects still need users, liquidity, regulatory compliance, and trust. Waddington believes that as development costs decrease, these factors will become increasingly important.
AI Agents Moving On-Chain
Autonomous AI agents could further stimulate activity in the sector. These agents can independently execute payments, trade assets, provide liquidity, and facilitate loans.
Blockchain technology is well-suited for these tasks due to its 24/7 availability, programmable settlements, and the ability to conduct microtransactions without human involvement.
The market for such services is already emerging. According to Keyrock, by May, AI agents had executed over 176 million transactions worth more than $73 million, with approximately 98.6% of these transactions involving the stablecoin USDC.
Infrastructure to support these scenarios is also evolving. One of the key players is Coinbase, which previously launched the x402 protocol for automatic online payments and later introduced Coinbase for Agents, a toolkit for trading and settlement using AI.
However, Fidelity does not anticipate that all agent operations will move to public blockchains. Banks, fintech firms, and traditional players are developing their own solutions, leveraging established customer bases, infrastructure, and access to credit products.
Analysts suggest that AI agents are likely to operate across multiple platforms, choosing between them based on cost and convenience.
Transaction Growth Does Not Ensure Revenue Growth
Even if AI draws millions of new transactions to blockchains, this will not necessarily lead to a proportional increase in revenue for the networks.
For example, while the number of payment transactions may rise rapidly, the fee for each transaction remains low. Such transactions can also be bundled, executed off-chain, or moved to cheaper Layer 2 solutions.
Far more significant revenue is generated through capital transactions. Fidelity calculated that over the past 180 days, trading has produced 49 times more revenue per dollar of volume for Ethereum's base layer compared to payments, with additional income also coming from MEV.
Source: Fidelity.This is why analysts see greater potential in AI agents that engage in trading, lending, borrowing, and providing liquidity. If automatic payments become widespread, the primary beneficiaries may be stablecoin issuers and infrastructure providers rather than the native tokens of blockchains.
It's worth noting that in March, analysts from Bernstein referred to digital assistants as the future of stablecoins. Later, Franklin Templeton highlighted that AI agents could drive crypto payments.