Patrick Collison and John Collison, founders of payments company Stripe, declared on social network Otherwise, the current infrastructure will not be able to keep up with the increase in automated online transactions.
The Collison brothers claim that AI agents will soon become the main participants in most digital transactions, putting unprecedented pressure on blockchain systems.
The Blockchain Infrastructure Gap
Stripe’s letter outlines a recent example: During a memecoin trading frenzy last year on a major network, payments for a Bridge user were delayed by more than 12 hours, and transaction fees increased 35 times. This highlights the vulnerability of current systems when faced with sudden spikes in activity.
For perspective, the best performing networks today are Solana and Internet Computer, which reach around 1,140-1,196 TPS at their peak. But even their theoretical maximums of 65,000-209,708 TPS fall far short of the billion TPS required for AI-scale operations.
Five levels of AI agents
Stripe’s founders also outlined five levels of AI agent capabilities:
- Basic automation – filling out web forms and performing standard online tasks.
- Descriptive search – find results based on situation descriptions instead of specific parameters.
- Context preserving – remembering user preferences, information and requirements.
- Delegation – performing tasks on behalf of users, such as online shopping.
- Anticipation – proposing solutions or schemes without explicit instructions.
Currently, AI agents hover between levels one and two, with the Collisons noting that future progress depends on universal interoperability between systems.
The Way Forward for Blockchain
Stripe emphasizes that meeting AI requirements will likely require a horizontal architecture of multiple, interacting chains rather than separate high-TPS networks. Energy efficiency is another concern, as scaling to billions of transactions per second requires careful consideration of decentralization and operational costs.
As AI adoption accelerates, the first blockchain networks to achieve these scalability benchmarks could come to dominate the emerging market for automated digital transactions.