Outdated Financial Infrastructure Limits AI Potential
John D’Agostino, Coinbase’s head of institutional strategy, emphasized that cryptocurrency will be essential for artificial intelligence-powered agents to operate efficiently within financial markets. Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box, D’Agostino pointed out that the current financial system infrastructure is outdated and incapable of handling real-time, machine-to-machine transactions at scale.
“If AI agents are going to operate on behalf of people, then they need to operate on ‘true sources of information,’ because it would be ‘disastrous if they didn’t,’” he said. According to D’Agostino, relying on century-old financial rails for such advanced technology is impractical.
D’Agostino described blockchain technology as an “infinitely scalable source of truth” that pairs naturally with the limitless intelligence of AI. “If we’re going to move to this world and have this wonderful advantage of these agents acting at infinitely fast speeds, they have to act on infinitely fast and scalable money rails. And that’s what blockchain and crypto is,” he explained.
He compared the idea to streaming a movie: “You wouldn’t try to stream a movie on a dial-up modem. You wouldn’t ask these AI agents to transact with a financial system that’s older than those modems.”
Bitcoin vs. Gold: Different Assets, Different Roles
On the ongoing comparison between Bitcoin and gold, D’Agostino argued that the two are fundamentally different. Bitcoin offers programmability, digital transferability, and scalability that gold simply cannot match.
“Bitcoin is programmable. It’s digital. It’s infinitely scalable in terms of movement. Easy to move. You don’t have to lug it across borders, and it produces a yield,” he noted.
He added, “If you’re one of the people who are genuinely concerned that global money supply grows like 7%, 8% a year, and that’s excessive, if you believe that’s excessive and that’s causing inflation, then you need assets that will beat that.”
D’Agostino also highlighted that trillions of dollars parked in money markets during high U.S. interest rates may start flowing into assets like Bitcoin as rates decline. “As rates tick down, that unlocks those assets. Now, all of it’s not flowing into assets like Bitcoin, but a portion will,” he said.
