Franklin Templeton: Agentic AI is a “killer use case” for cryptocurrencies

PANews July 23 news: Decrypt reported that Sandy Kaul, Chief Digital Assets and Innovation Officer at Franklin Templeton, released a report stating that agentic AI will become the “killer use case” driving blockchain adoption. The report argues that traditional payment networks are unsuitable for agentic AI needs in both structure and speed—blockchains can complete recording and settlement at the same time, while Visa settlement takes 1 to 3 business days. This speed gap is crucial when AI agents execute thousands of micro-payments per hour. The report cites forecasts that by 2030 AI agents will account for 15% to 25% of U.S. e-commerce sales, with agentic commerce reaching $3 trillion to $5 trillion in scale. Kaul believes that if each agent uses blockchain-native tokens to buy data, compute power, and API services, demand for tokens such as Solana and Ethereum will rise accordingly, and investors need to buy these cryptocurrencies to capture the value of decentralized networks.