Woofun AI reports that Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul has identified agentic AI as the definitive next killer use case for blockchain and cryptocurrency, a thesis he articulated in a detailed X post on Wednesday. Kaul argues that the emerging AI agent economy will inherently drive demand for blockchain protocols capable of hosting machine-to-machine micropayments, a function legacy card networks are structurally ill-equipped to serve due to prohibitive fees and sluggish settlement times.

The infrastructure gap is starkly illustrated by a joint report published last Wednesday by payments giant Visa and investment thesis platform Artemis, which concluded that traditional cards designed for low-frequency human commerce are insufficient for AI agents. These autonomous entities require infrastructure offering near-zero fees and rapid settlement to make agentic micropayments commercially viable, a standard the current one-to-three business-day settlement window of the Visa network fails to meet. This structural mismatch highlights why legacy systems cannot support the high-volume, low-value transactions characteristic of the agentic economy.

In contrast, blockchain networks such as Aptos, Solana, and the BNB Chain are positioned to capture this market because they settle transactions in seconds, significantly outpacing traditional financial rails. While Visa’s crypto division and Stripe-backed Tempo launched AI tools in March to enable same-day payments, the speed advantage of decentralized ledgers remains distinct. Per Woofun AI, early adoption signals are already visible in the market, with Coinbase’s x402 payment protocol processing $15 million in adjusted volume across over 109 million adjusted transactions since its launch in May 2025.

This divergence suggests that the investment playbook for agentic AI may differ fundamentally from current strategies focused on AI-aligned companies and related verticals. As the agentic economy matures, the ability to facilitate frictionless, low-cost machine-to-machine interactions will likely determine which platforms achieve commercial viability. The shift toward blockchain-based settlement for AI agents marks a critical evolution in digital infrastructure.