DeFi May Be Infrastructure for the AI Agent Economy

Summary

Raoul Pal argues that DeFi may have been misunderstood as a consumer financial product. Its more consequential role could be providing programmable, always-on financial infrastructure for billions of AI agents that transact, lend, exchange assets, hedge risk, and manage treasuries without human supervision. Traditional banks and clearing systems may not support the speed, scale, or software-based identities of these agents. Smart contracts and permissionless blockchains could offer the required settlement layer. Agents would likely route activity to the fastest and cheapest networks, pushing transaction fees down while increasing the value of the infrastructure beneath them.