Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said stablecoins could become the default medium of exchange in rapidly emerging economies where autonomous artificial intelligence agents can transact with each other. He said traditional payments are too slow, expensive and cumbersome for the world being built.
Circle is a fintech company and issuer of USD Coin (USDC), the second-largest U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin after Tether.
Unlike other forms of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins maintain a consistent price when pegged to another asset such as the U.S. dollar.
Speech during Where are we on stablecoins? In a recent discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Allaire argued that the combination of mature blockchain networks, smart contract platforms and increasingly autonomous artificial intelligence systems is driving finance toward “machine-to-machine” payments, and stablecoins are the only currency suitable to power it.
“Stablecoins are becoming the backbone of payments for AI agents,” Allaire said.
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“We now have very mature blockchain networks that can execute code through publicly verifiable smart contracts. This is critical when validating transactions between AI agents,” Allaire said.
“Taking out a Visa card or initiating a bank wire is ridiculous. We need a medium of exchange that scales to fractions of a cent and has speed and interoperability across applications and devices.”
The conversation comes amid a flurry of companies researching how to use autonomous artificial intelligence agents and software tools to make decisions, conduct transactions, process data and even purchase goods or services without human approval.
More than 700 AI agent startups launched on Stripe last year alone, indicating that the infrastructure layer for autonomous commerce is accelerating.
Read more: What the Bank of England’s Stablecoin Cap Means for UK Cryptocurrency Users
Unlike large language models such as ChatGPT, these agents can be configured to run independently, including for payments. This immediately creates a bottleneck, because traditional financial rails are not designed for 24/7, small-increment, cross-border trading machines.
AI agents don’t sleep. They trade around the clock, analyzing charts, on-chain data, liquidity conditions and market sentiment in real time. Smart contracts used on networks such as Ethereum (ETH-USD) are responsible for execution, while the blockchain verifies each transaction.
Payment companies are already adapting. Stripe has launched expanded tools and developer support to help enterprises integrate stablecoins and emerging AI-driven commerce, enabling new programmable payment processes.
