Franklin Templeton says investors chasing artificial intelligence (AI) growth should look beyond AI stocks. The $1.8 trillion manager suggests cryptocurrencies and altcoins may be key to capturing the potential of agentic AI.

The argument comes from Sandy Kaul, head of digital assets at Franklin Templeton. She contends that agentic AI could become the “killer” use case that drives blockchain adoption.

Why Franklin Templeton Points to Crypto

Kaul’s thesis rests on how AI agents will transact. Autonomous software will make constant micropayments for compute, data, and services.

Standard card networks charge roughly 2% to 3% plus a flat fee per payment. Those costs make tiny machine payments impractical. Blockchains can settle sub-cent transactions in seconds and automatically record them.

“Agentic AI will likely need to rely on crypto technologies and blockchains to enable their activities as these rails are ideally suited for these use cases. Indeed, blockchains and crypto technologies are likely to become the foundational delivery layer for these transactions,” Kaul said.

Emerging standards support the idea. Coinbase built the x402 payment protocol and moved it to the Linux Foundation. Backers now include Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Google, and Circle.

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The Case for Altcoins

The investment logic follows the transaction demand. To record activity on a chain, an agent pays fees in that network’s native token.

Kaul uses Solana (SOL) as her example. Rising agent activity could lift demand for the tokens of the chains that host it. She expects enterprise software to drive the first wave.

“Today, investors have positioned their portfolios to capture the AI growth opportunity by buying the stock of AI-aligned companies,” she noted. “To capture the potential of agentic AI, those same portfolios should consider extending their exposure to cryptocurrencies and the alt coins being generated by blockchain-based apps and projects.”

The opportunity remains largely forward-looking. McKinsey estimates agentic commerce could orchestrate $3 trillion to $5 trillion in revenue by 2030. 

If a meaningful share of those transactions runs on blockchain networks, demand for the cryptocurrencies powering those ecosystems could rise, potentially strengthening the investment case for digital assets beyond traditional AI stocks.

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Source: BeInCrypto