“Eventually, this artificial internet money may also become the preferred medium of exchange for artificial intelligence agents as well, and I personally think the broader market has not yet priced in such a paradigm shift.”
Nearly two years ago, I highlighted what is now increasingly evident: the potential synergy between artificial intelligence (AI) agents and Ethereum.
Today, Google announced the launch of the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) “to securely initiate and transact agent-led payments across platforms.” As further noted, “AP2 is designed as a universal protocol, providing security and trust for a variety of payments like stablecoins and cryptocurrencies.”
Notably, contributors to the development of AP2 include leading crypto related organizations, such as Coinbase and the Ethereum Foundation (EF). Coincidentally, EF recently announced the start of its own AI team as well (known as the dAI team).
Relatedly, the September 2025 issue of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Finance and Development Magazaine was just recently published, and therein stablecoin innovation was an overarching focus.
In light of these accelerating developments, a critical question arises: how do we ensure AI agents can transact in a way that is aligned with Ethereum’s credibly neutral ethos?
In this blog post, I will explore why Liquity Protocol’s v2 stablecoin, BOLD, would serve as the ideal stablecoin of choice for AI agents built on Ethereum.
The Ethereum Dollar
“Ethereum makes AI more trustworthy, and AI makes Ethereum more useful. The more intelligent agents transact, the more they need a neutral base layer for value and reputation. Ethereum benefits by becoming that layer and AI benefits by escaping lock-in to a few centralized platforms...Neutral, verifiable, censorship-resistant infrastructure means AI works for the people, all of us.”
It’s apparent that the advancement of AI agents on Ethereum is expanding in light of its underlying decentralization as a settlement and coordination layer. If such qualities are fundamentally necessary for the onchain foundation upon which AI agents are built, then it’s similarly vital for AI agents to be able to transact in a censorship resistant manner as well.
Accordingly, if we consider stablecoins in particular, then BOLD is especially befitting for AI agents on Ethereum to use. In being marketed as The Ethereum Dollar, BOLD stands out for its immutable design and the absence of any reliance on human coordinated governance, and its onchain analytics are verifiable in real-time.
Distinctively, BOLD users can set their own borrowing costs or delegate their management to automated services. Furthermore, BOLD’s onchain yield opportunities are plentiful on both Ethereum mainnet and associated L2s, offering crypto native yield that’s not reliant on offchain entities.
AI meets BOLD: An Early Case Study
Considering the above, AI agents on Ethereum could be designed to borrow and exchange with BOLD under different circumstances and through a variety of DeFi related use cases. While the development of AI agents as such is still in its preliminary phases, an early case study showcasing the potential for BOLD in this regard is its recent integration with Botto, the first decentralized AI artist built on Ethereum.
As detailed by The DeFi Collective, its engagement with Botto DAO on launching a BOLD liquidity pool with Botto’s core protocol token, BOTTO, was driven by its belief that, “The future of DeFi lies not in isolated protocols, but in thoughtful collaboration between projects that share common values and complementary strengths, as this partnership hopes to exemplify.”
“As you have this AI assistant...you’re going to want it to be able to manage money...The system [Ethereum] is really kind of perfect for this. It’s permissionless, global, transparent, with Layer 2s it becomes fast and cheap, and it’s entirely digital native.”
While the launch of such a liquidity pool may rightfully be considered a basic step in initiating a collaboration, it’s nevertheless a starting point from which future explorations of the potential synergies between AI and DeFi can be made. For example, BOLD could be incorporated into the development of Botto’s agent framework, with such agents perhaps prioritizing the use of BOLD for stablecoin payments if they’re ultimately enabled to transact freely.
Conclusion
Prioritizing AI agent development on Ethereum as a credibly neutral base layer similarly necessitates emphasizing the use of truly decentralized stablecoins by onchain AI agents and protocols, too. Designed and positioned as The Ethereum Dollar, BOLD is particularly suited for a variety of integrations in this manner, and the BOLD + BOTTO liquidity pool launch is a representative initiative in its early stages.
“We must keep an open mind about stablecoins and financial innovation. Clearly, there is a lot of room for improvement in payment systems and financial markets in general...Who knows what new possibilities such innovations will unlock along the way?”
As the BOLD + BOTTO liquidity pool was deployed on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum L2, then we may extrapolate from Coinbase’s involvement in Google’s AP2 launch that it would therefore be opportune for Botto DAO and The DeFi Collective to prioritize their support of the pool over the long term, considering AP2’s noted focus on AI agentic stablecoin uses and the IMF’s recent spotlight on stablecoin innovations.
Ultimately, monitoring the lessons learned from this collaboration over time will serve as an example for broader consideration of AI oriented stablecoin integrations. BOLD aligned frontends and friendly forks on various Ethereum L2s may similarly consider exploring AI synergies in their respective capacities and ecosystems as well.