Sandy Kaul said the AI agent economy will boost demand for blockchain protocols for micropayments because legacy cards are too slow and costly. Visa and Artemis agree.
Franklin Templeton's head of digital assets and innovation called agentic artificial intelligence the next "killer" use case for blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Sandy Kaul posted on X Wednesday that the AI agent economy will increase demand for blockchain protocols that host machine-to-machine micropayments. Legacy card networks are unsuitable for those payments, Kaul said. Fees are high and settlement takes one to three business days.
Kaul said blockchain networks like Aptos and Solana settle transactions in seconds. That is faster than the Visa network.
The argument echoes a joint report from Visa and investment platform Artemis published last Wednesday. Visa and Artemis argued that traditional cards built for low-frequency human commerce are insufficient for AI agents. The infrastructure needed near-zero fees and faster settlement to make agentic micropayments viable, they said.
Visa's crypto division and Stripe-backed Tempo each launched AI tools in March. Visa's tool lets AI agents make same-day payments.
Some machine payment protocols are showing signs of adoption. The x402 payment protocol developed by Coinbase processed $15 million in adjusted volume across more than 109 million adjusted transactions since its May 2025 launch, according to the Visa and Artemis report.
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