CZ backs AI agents to drive crypto usage as oil prices relieve crypto price pressure

Binance founder CZ has declared that AI agents will generate payments at a scale that dwarfs human activity, as the world’s largest exchange’s research arm posits that stabilizing oil prices may have removed the most dangerous macro headwind facing crypto markets.

The signals, both coming from the Binance ecosystem, paint a bullish picture for digital assets, with one pointing at structural demand from machine-driven transactions on one side, and the other highlighting the retreat of stagflation risk on the other.

Why are AI agents tipped as the next big driver of crypto volume?

In a post on X on March 9, CZ quoted a BNB Chain announcement about the $U stablecoin’s adoption of EIP-3009, a standard that enables gasless, signature-authorized transfers without requiring on-chain approval transactions. 

He wrote, “AI agents will make 1 million times more payments than humans, and they will use crypto.”

The $U token, issued by United Stables on BNB Chain, bills itself as the first stablecoin on the network with native EIP-3009 support for agent payments. The project’s chief executive officer, Athena Y, stated that $U is “designed to become the united value layer for a world where humans and AI operate side-by-side as economic participants.”

CZ has made the AI agent payments thesis a recurring theme. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, he stated that blockchain would become the most natural technical interface for AI agents, on the grounds that autonomous software cannot swipe a credit card or receive an SMS verification code.

CZ is not alone in his prediction, as Circle’s CEO, Jeremy Allaire, told investors on a February earnings call that Circle could play a major role in the convergence between AI, stablecoins, and blockchain.

AI agents have already settled an estimated 140 million payments among themselves over the past nine months, per Enterprise Onchain, totaling roughly $43 million in volume, with USDC accounting for 98.6% of those transactions. 

Stripe has also made considerable investments in the space, having reportedly spent $1.1 billion acquiring stablecoin infrastructure, co-building a blockchain designed specifically for stablecoin payments alongside Visa, Mastercard, UBS, and Shopify.

How’s oil market affecting crypto’s near-term price outlook?

In a separate post made roughly an hour before CZ’s post on March 9, Binance Research published a flash note on the oil market, reacting to reports that G7 nations were preparing to discuss a joint release of emergency petroleum reserves. The research arm of Binance stated, “Oil’s ceiling is in.”

In its projection, it stated, “$110 Brent has fully priced a month-plus closure of the Strait of Hormuz.” 

Several buffers, it wrote, had yet to be deployed. The United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve holds roughly 700 million barrels, and the International Energy Agency’s member states collectively control approximately 4 billion barrels. 

However, no coordinated release has been initiated, and per Reuters, the G7 reached a broad agreement not to release oil reserves just yet.

Binance Research placed the near-term trading range at $100 to $110, with any substantive diplomatic development or routing normalization capable of prompting a rapid repricing into the $80s to $90s.

How do elevated oil prices affect crypto?

The connection between crude and crypto runs through inflation. Sustained high oil prices feed into consumer price indices, and this  constrains the room central banks have to ease monetary policy, in turn leading to tightening liquidity conditions across risk assets. 

Bitcoin, in particular, has demonstrated a strong correlation with technology stocks during periods of macroeconomic stress.

Binance Research stated that if oil prices remain range-bound, stagflation concerns may ease. “The worst macro scenario for crypto relied on rising oil prices,” it wrote, adding that selling pressure from de-risking and risk-off sentiment “may have bottomed, supporting crypto market stabilization or rebound.”