[Digital Today reporter Jinju Hong] A claim has been raised that XRP and the XRP Ledger (XRPL) could become core financial infrastructure if an autonomous economy in which artificial intelligence (AI) agents handle payments and settlement becomes a reality.

On April 4 local time, blockchain media outlet The Crypto Basic reported that Chandler Fang (Chandler Fang), chief executive of blockchain-based AI agent infrastructure developer T54.ai, expressed the view in a podcast interview.

Fang said the way AI agents operate fundamentally clashes with existing financial systems. He said AI interacts via APIs and runs 24 hours a day without stopping, rather than moving around apps or user interfaces (UI) like humans do. In that environment, he stressed the need for an always-on payment infrastructure like an “internet of money”. He explained that traditional finance still has business-hour constraints and manual processes, making it difficult to keep up with AI-driven automated transaction flows.

He first pointed to an ultra-low-cost structure as XRPL’s competitive strength. Fang said T54.ai has so far processed more than 20 million agent-based transactions, most of them microtransactions. In such an environment, transaction fees are a key variable, he said. He said XRPL’s cost is very low, at “fractions of a cent”, making it suitable for large-scale automated payments. He also noted that even a slight rise in fees could quickly undermine the economics of automated small-value transactions.

Processing speed and scalability were also cited as important factors. Fang said some blockchain networks could make such use cases unrealistic in practice because of high fees or low throughput. By contrast, he said XRPL is designed for fast settlement and efficiency, making it suitable for environments in which AI agents execute large volumes of transactions in real time.

He also cited Ripple’s financial network as a competitive advantage. Fang said Ripple’s global payment routes and links to financial institutions could give AI agents the ability to carry out cross-border transactions. Payment infrastructure connecting hundreds of countries and regions could be an important foundation in an agent-based economy, he said. He also mentioned as positive factors stablecoin integration within the XRPL ecosystem and expanded cash management functions.

Fang said that if ultra-low fees, fast processing speeds and global financial connectivity are combined, XRPL could become a key rail underpinning a reliable agentic economy. He forecast that demand will grow for a new form of digital payment infrastructure, rather than existing financial systems, as structures in which AI agents handle payments, transactions and even resource allocation spread.

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