Chalom Says Ethereum May Host Most AI-Agent Financial Activity

SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom said Ethereum’s ecosystem could handle most financial activity conducted by artificial intelligence agents as stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets and decentralized finance expand their roles.

Agents could use blockchain infrastructure to lend tokenized assets or pledge them as collateral for borrowing. They could also compare interest rates, risk and tax effects across markets before deciding whether to retain, lend, borrow against or transfer assets.

Hundreds of millions of stablecoin payments between AI agents have settled through networks including Base and Solana. More than 10,000 agents registered on Ethereum’s ERC-8004 identity protocol during its first 10 weeks.

Chalom said his team’s modeling projects that more than $1 trillion annually in global financial-services revenue could be redistributed by 2030, rising to $4 trillion annually by 2035. The estimates describe potential changes as AI agents take on more financial tasks.

The shift could also reduce fees. Chalom said users could save $350 billion annually by 2030 and $1.4 trillion by 2035, amounts he said would eliminate nearly one-quarter of fees across the global financial industry.

Chalom said infrastructure ownership could determine which companies control AI agents and their customers. He listed Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Circle, Tether, Coinbase and Binance among the firms competing in the market.