Crypto: Blockchains May Need 1b Tps To Support AI Agent Future: Stripe

Stripe executives Patrick and John Collison expect blockchain network demands to increase significantly as adoption and use of AI agents grow in the future.

Financial technology firm Stripe says blockchains may need to process up to 1 billion transactions per second to support the future of artificial intelligence agents.

In an annual letter posted to X on Tuesday, Stripe CEO and co-founder Patrick Collison and co-founder John Collison gave a rundown of the firm’s performance over 2025, while also making some predictions for the near future.

One of the key talking points was the adoption of AI agents and what widespread use could look like in the future. The duo argued that blockchain transaction activity could increase significantly as AI agents gradually become the primary conductors of online transactions.

However, the Stripe co-founders said there is a significant infrastructure gap in blockchain and said significant scaling improvements would be required to meet this incoming demand.

“Last year, a memecoin trading frenzy on one of the major blockchains delayed payouts for one Bridge user by over 12 hours and spiked per-transaction prices 35x. While such operational issues are already significant, they will only intensify, for we expect the appetite for transactions to grow a great deal,” they wrote, adding:

According to data from Chainspect, Internet Computer Protocol and Solana are currently the top two blockchains by transaction speed, with roughly 1,196 and 1,140 transactions per second (TPS), respectively.

They are the only two on the market currently processing more than 1,000 TPS, and at their peak, they have processed 25,621 TPS and 5,289 TPS, respectively.

As it stands, both networks have a theoretical maximum of only 209,708 TPS and 65,000 TPS, respectively.

Alongside their predictions on the incoming demand, the Stripe execs also outlined what the main kinds of use cases AI agents will be serving online. Currently, they said that AI agents have moved beyond a phase of “pure hype” into a time of building and “real-world experimentation.”

Source: CoinTelegraph