Franklin Templeton Sees Agentic AI Driving Blockchain Adoption

Agentic AI systems can plan tasks, buy computing resources, call APIs and make payments with limited human intervention, creating a high-frequency, low-value transaction model unlike conventional e-commerce. Franklin Templeton, which manages nearly $1.8 trillion, argues that this shift could make blockchain a core payments layer for autonomous commerce. The appeal lies in near-instant settlement and low fees, particularly for machine-to-machine micropayments that would be uneconomic on card networks designed around larger, less frequent human purchases.

Franklin Templeton’s Head of Digital Assets and Innovation Sandy Kaul said on July 22 that Aptos, Solana and BNB Chain settle transactions in seconds, while Visa settlement takes one to three business days. A July 14 report from Visa and Artemis showed x402, a payments protocol incubated by Coinbase, had processed about $15 million in adjusted volume across 109.6 million adjusted transactions since its May 2025 launch. Kaul said agentic AI could become blockchain’s next “killer” use case and drive demand for crypto rails.