Animoca co-founder Yat Siu forecasts 50-200 billion AI agents by 2031 needing financial identities. Traditional banks can't serve them, so blockchain wallets and stablecoins will fill the gap.
JPMorgan, with an Alpha Score of 56 out of 100, is not yet worrying about this question. When billions of autonomous AI agents need to send and receive money, who will bank them? Not traditional financial institutions, according to Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands. Banks require legal entities to open accounts. AI agents are not legal entities. Blockchain does not care either way.
Siu forecasts between 50 billion and 200 billion AI agents operating autonomously by 2031. As a comparison, Earth has about 8 billion humans. Software agents would outnumber people by at least six to one. These agents will not be glorified chatbots. They will code, shop, negotiate, and transact independently, each needing its own financial identity. Siu reportedly manages over 200 AI agents himself for tasks including coding and shopping, testing the thesis with his own workflow.
If an AI agent needs to pay another AI agent for a service, it cannot walk into a bank branch with two forms of ID. It needs a wallet and programmable money. The infrastructure must treat a software process and a human user with equal indifference. Blockchain provides that infrastructure. Stablecoins become the obvious medium of exchange. They offer the price stability of fiat without the gatekeeping of traditional finance. The trend of stablecoin adoption is already visible, as seen in PayPal's PYUSD expansion. Crypto wallets become the universal bank account that no bank would ever issue.
Animoca Brands, founded in 2014, built its reputation on gaming and NFTs. It was a central player in the metaverse hype cycle. The firm now manages a diversified portfolio of over 600 companies involved in AI and blockchain. It is valued at approximately $5.9 billion, following its peak in 2022. In February 2026, Animoca launched Hello Minds, an initiative to deploy AI agents with persistent identities and on-chain capabilities. The company set up a $10 million funding program for developers building agentic applications.
Drafted by a large language model from the source reporting linked above, then screened by automated publishing checks. It is not read by a journalist before publication. Some articles cite our Alpha Score. Verify prices and figures against the original source. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.