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If you think holding tech stocks like Nvidia gives you complete exposure to the Artificial Intelligence revolution, asset management giant Franklin Templeton has news for you: it does not.
While chipmakers supply the raw computing power powering modern large language models, the real shift is happening in how software interacts with the global economy. Enter agentic AI—autonomous software capable of making decisions, executing multi-step tasks, and executing financial payments without human intervention.
According to Sandy Kaul, Head of Digital Assets and Innovation at Franklin Templeton (a firm managing nearly $1.8 trillion in assets), agentic AI requires an entirely new financial architecture to function. That architecture will not be built on traditional banking rails; it will run on blockchain technology.
To understand why crypto is essential to this shift, we must first look at how artificial intelligence is evolving. Most consumers are familiar with reactive AI—chatbots that answer queries, draft emails, or generate text when prompted.
Agentic AI moves far beyond simple text generation. Research by advisory firm Capgemini describes this transition as moving AI from a reactive conversational bot to an autonomous system that can perceive its environment, formulate a plan, and execute tasks independently. Rather than merely recommending a flight or searching for a restaurant, an AI agent can research, select, book, and pay for the service on your behalf.
This is not a distant theoretical vision. Bain & Company projects that AI agents will account for 15% to 25% of all US e-commerce sales by 2030. Meanwhile, McKinsey & Company estimates the total market for agentic commerce could reach between $3 trillion and $5 trillion within the same timeframe.
If autonomous agents are set to handle trillions of pounds in economic activity, why cannot they simply use existing banking systems?
The problem lies in legacy infrastructure. Traditional payment networks—such as credit cards and wire transfers—were built for human-scale commercial interactions. They are simply not engineered to process millions of high-frequency, sub-penny micro-transactions generated by autonomous software buying API access, cloud compute, or datasets every second.
Furthermore, there is a fundamental difference between transaction recording and actual financial settlement:
For software agents making thousands of micro-payments an hour, waiting days for settlement is impractical. High-throughput chains like Aptos (capable of over 12,000 transactions per second), Solana, and BNB Chain provide the near-instantaneous settlement required for frictionless machine-to-machine commerce.
Major technology firms and financial institutions are already positioning themselves for this transition:
The overarching message from Franklin Templeton is clear: to capture the full financial value of the AI boom, investors must look beyond hardware manufacturers and enterprise software providers.
When millions of AI agents continuously purchase data, server capacity, and API access across decentralized networks, they will use native cryptographic tokens to settle transaction fees. As transaction volume scales exponentially, demand for underlying cryptocurrencies—such as Ethereum, Solana, and other high-speed tokens—is likely to follow.
In the words of Sandy Kaul, capturing the true value of decentralized networks requires holding the cryptocurrencies powering them. Far from being a speculative niche, blockchain technology may have finally found its defining operational purpose: serving as the monetary foundation for autonomous intelligence.
To read the original source and get more information, view the full article on Decrypt:
👉 Franklin Templeton Says Agentic AI Is Crypto's 'Killer Use Case'
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only, mistakes may be made, and it's not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
