Podcast Summary: Why Crypto Will Power the AI Agent Economy

Raoul Pal: The Journeyman (Real Vision Podcast Network)
Date: April 3, 2026
Guest: Arpan (Founder, Beep)

Episode Overview

Raoul Pal sits down with Arpan, founder of Beep, to explore the rapidly accelerating convergence of crypto, AI, and autonomous agents. The duo dives deep into the logic and necessity for blockchains in a machine-driven economy, the rise of “agentic” activity, and the impending shift in global economic structure. This episode unpacks the shifting total addressable market (TAM) in crypto, the future of money flows, and how individuals and organizations can (and must) adapt to a world where intelligent machines dominate investment, payments, and value creation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Explosion of Agents and Rethinking Market Size

• AI Agents are multiplying: The total addressable market (TAM) for the Internet and crypto is no longer capped by human population; instead, with agents, it's effectively infinite.
  • “Each human having at least 100,000 agents probably in the next two to three years.”
    — Arpan [00:09]
• Agents as primary users: We are moving from a human-centric to an agent-centric digital economy.
  • “Today's crypto is powered by humans and human clicks... but agents coming on chain—it's going to go to each human having at least 100,000 agents.”
    — Arpan [12:51]

2. The Bottleneck: Money Layer and Programmable Finance

• Problem identified: Software moves at “the speed of thought,” but money is still limited by human speed and infrastructure.
  • “Software can move at the speed of thought. But money was still the bottleneck.”
    — Arpan [05:34]
• AI demands new infrastructure: Agents need an execution layer that matches their speed and intelligence—enter programmable, permissionless crypto rails.
  • “For AI to accomplish its promise... it's going to need a programmable money layer purpose-built just for agents.”
    — Arpan [09:37]
  • “Crypto wasn’t built for humans, it was built for machines.”
    — Raoul Pal [11:05]

3. Agents Will Drive Machine GDP (MGDP)

• MGDP explained: Machine-driven GDP starts by consuming/cannibalizing human economic activity, then creates its own exponential economy:
  • “MGDP in relation correlation to human GDP... initially starts with taking some away... then creates this exponential effect.”
    — Arpan [15:42]
  • “Eventually the machine GDP growth rate is going to be much faster and exponentially supersede human GDP.”
    — Arpan [15:42]
• Bootstrapping the agent economy:
  • “The moment that agents become profit incentivized themselves... you end up with a bunch of tokens. So now they have to make an asset allocation decision...”
    — Raoul Pal [17:34]

4. Invisible, Real-Time, Exponential Economies

• Invisible agent economy: As agents transact, the majority of economic activity becomes invisible to humans but immense in value and speed.
  • “It'll be an invisible economy of enormous size and that'll be amazing. And it'll be real time, measurable, open and transparent...”
    — Arpan [24:28]
• Measuring MGDP: Current measurement is rudimentary; standards like ERC8004 and wallet signatures may help distinguish human/agent transactions.
  • “For measurement starts instrumentation first, like knowing whether the activity is a human activity or an agent activity.”
    — Arpan [26:14]
• Identity remains a challenge: Sorting out identity for humans vs. agents is urgent.
  • “We're just missing this ID layer and it's going to get terrifying if we don't get it soon.”
    — Raoul Pal [27:22]

5. Shifts in Silicon Valley and Tech Stacks

• AI leads the return to crypto: AI builders in Silicon Valley are rediscovering the necessity of on-chain infrastructure for agentic AI.
  • “For AI to be really successful... AI has to be an on chain use case.”
    — Arpan [29:23]
• Tokenization of information: All valuable information will become machine readable and tradable (“token factories”), with stablecoins and crypto as universal payment.
  • “Every corporation is a factory of tokens... tokenized information sitting on chain which has a particular value to it.”
    — Arpan [32:29]
  • “Part of the entire agent economy is just paying for information or renting information. And then it becomes a very much larger thing.”
    — Raoul Pal [32:12]

6. Blockchains and Agent Rails

• What blockchains will win? Agents (unlike humans) are ruthlessly rational, always choosing speed and cost efficiency.
  • “The most efficient blockchain wins... Rational agents are just going to flow in that direction.”
    — Raoul Pal [23:07–25:47]
• Multi-chain is inevitable: Interoperability is essential since agents flexibly choose optimal execution environments.
  • “Agents... will execute a decision on any chain that is, let’s say, 10 milliseconds faster and is 2 bips cheaper.”
    — Arpan [20:47]

7. What Beep is Building

• Product features:
  • Cross-chain agent payments (fully agent-to-agent).
  • Agent-based treasury management and yield optimization.
  • SDKs for agents to integrate payment and capital management seamlessly.
• Product roadmap:
  • Launched payment rails (zero-fee, cross-chain, agentic).
  • Rolled out agent-driven yield/trading strategies, with plans for prediction markets.
  • Moving toward tokenization of agent-created strategies and data.
  • “Packed phase one, now we have all of this information, rich information done by agents... Can we tokenize that and give it back to the users so users can create money for it.”
    — Arpan [40:54]

8. Final Vision: The Economic Singularity

• Machines out-competing humans: Eventually, agents will dominate capital allocation, investment, and business creation.
  • “There is a point of which the machines are better investors than humans at all time horizons and all time frames.”
    — Raoul Pal [44:29–44:32]
  • “We're not going to be [the capital allocators]... because we're too inefficient at it. Horses aren't as efficient as cars. Simple as that.”
    — Raoul Pal [46:59]
• World of abundance: For the next five years, significant opportunity remains—after that, alpha will compress as agents dominate.
  • “We have five years to kind of get there. Because after that the alpha might compress to a point which we don't know or what happens.”
    — Arpan [49:42]

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “Crypto wasn’t built for humans, it was built for machines.”
  — Raoul Pal [11:05]

• “Each human having at least 100,000 agents probably in the next two to three years.”
  — Arpan [00:09]

• “The most efficient blockchain wins and now that will change over time. It’s the faster, cheaper, more efficient way — and the most intelligent way a blockchain can operate will be the predominant choice of an agent.”
  — Raoul Pal [23:07]

• “MGDP... grows faster than anything, it has an inflection point.”
  — Arpan [51:20]

• “We're heading towards a world of abundance... a civilizational shift. I feel this is way bigger than even your mobile or Internet.”
  — Arpan [49:42]

Notable Timestamps

• 00:00–04:11: Introduction to agents, TAM, and macro/crypto/AI convergence
• 04:31–07:11: Arpan’s background: AI in gaming, fintech (PayPal), bottleneck of money movement
• 09:37–12:13: The origin of Beep—realizing AI needs a programmable money layer
• 15:08–17:34: Bootstrapping MGDP and agent economics
• 20:15–23:07: Changing internet protocols (HTTP 402 standard for agent payments)
• 23:07–25:47: Rational agents, cross-chain rails, and network effects
• 34:11–36:35: Tokenization of information; “token factories”; supply/demand for machine-readable data
• 39:24–44:29: What Beep has built; moving toward prediction markets, yield, and trading agents
• 44:29–49:42: Economic singularity, future of capital allocation, agentic abundance
• 52:31–55:23: How to use Beep’s platform; SDKs; risk profiles and user experience

How to Use Beep

• Agent-first SDKs: Agents can automatically provision services/payments/yield via SDKs.
  • “You can just go [to Claude or GPT] and say that in Claude and your BEEP agent is provisioned, which is now tokenized, sitting on chain and that could be sold to a counterparty agent.”
    — Arpan [52:43]
• Human-friendly interface: Non-technical users can use a wallet-based UI to access agent-powered services or yield opportunities.
  • Connect with popular crypto wallets (MetaMask, Phantom, Slush, etc.).
  • Choose risk/yield preference and deploy capital accordingly.

Conclusion

This is a watershed moment: the rise of autonomous AI agents, fueled by crypto rails, will reshape how value is created, measured, and distributed. The agentic economy, though nascent (MGDP ≈ $0 today), is set for exponential growth, redefining the meaning of markets, business, and ownership. Blockchains, programmable payments, tokenized data, and agentic treasuries will underpin a new, invisible economic layer. For investors, builders, and ordinary users, the next five years are critical—after that, as Raoul and Arpan agree, human alpha begins to vanish.

Further Reading/Listening

• Learn more about Beep and agentic payments at [beep’s website].
• Explore Agent 402/X402 payment standards.
• Watch for updates on agent identity protocols and measurement standards.
• Check out Raoul Pal’s “Prepare for 2030” report for future-focused investment perspectives.

For the full technical and philosophical ride, listen to the complete episode on the Real Vision Podcast Network.