According to Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom, AI agents are positioned to eliminate nearly a quarter of global finance fees by 2035. As reported by Sharplink, Chalom's team projects that AI agents will cut $1.4 trillion in yearly finance fees, with the majority of activity expected on the Ethereum blockchain. The former BlackRock executive outlined this forecast in an X post on Wednesday, drawing from his experience at the world's largest asset manager.
Chalom's model projects that over $1 trillion in annual financial services revenue will be up for grabs by 2030, with this figure expected to reach $4 trillion annually by 2035. According to the Sharplink analysis, consumers would keep an extra $350 billion annually by 2030, which would climb to $1.4 trillion as AI agents become more prevalent. The model assumes that agents will force financial providers to compete more aggressively on fees, fundamentally changing how financial services are delivered.
As reported by Sharplink, the competition to control these AI agents has already begun, with major players including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, PayPal, Circle, Tether, Robinhood, Coinbase, and Binance competing for market dominance. Chalom argues that "whoever owns the infrastructure, owns the agent, and therefore the customer." The winner of this infrastructure battle will determine which products agents recommend and where idle cash gets directed. BlackRock's research paper this week supported this thesis, naming stablecoins as the leading candidate for agent payments.
According to Sharplink, agentic transactions will predominantly occur where stablecoins, tokenized assets, and DeFi liquidity are concentrated, with much of this activity currently centered in the Ethereum ecosystem. The company's balance sheet reflects this positioning, holding 891,714 ETH as of September 14, according to its dashboard. Chalom points to Ethereum's record of 3.6 million daily transactions in April as evidence of the network's growing activity and potential for AI agent adoption.
While Sharplink projects significant growth, Fidelity Digital Assets offered a more measured outlook in August. Senior research analyst Max Wadington warned that closed systems run by tech and fintech firms could instead absorb agent activity, suggesting that the disruption may not be as widespread as some forecasts predict. This contrasting view highlights the ongoing debate within the financial technology sector about the pace and scope of AI agent adoption in traditional financial services.
