The AI revolution needs programmable money

The following article by Mesh co-founder and COO, Adam Israel, first appeared in the Global Digital Finance 2025 Annual Report.

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“Programmable money” used to be one of crypto’s favorite buzzwords, capturing the imagination of developers who saw the potential for code to govern how value moves. Early blockchains like Ethereum brought that idea to life, making money itself “smart” (capable of following instructions and executing rules), and even some of Bitcoin’s earliest advocates saw programmability as the next great leap in how money could work.

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But as the industry matured, the conversation drifted. We began talking about other important issues - regulation, adoption, user experience - and programmability quietly faded into the background. It’s time to bring it back. As AI agents begin making financial decisions, programmable money is the only form of value that can keep up with their speed, precision, and complex logic. At TOKEN2049, our CEO laid out exactly where crypto and AI converge — and why crypto rails are the only viable foundation.

The promise of programmability

At its core, programmable money is money governed by self-executing if/then logic: if a certain condition is met, then the payment executes automatically. This turns money from something passive into something active–value that can make decisions, trigger actions, and operate without human oversight.

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Here are three examples of programmable money in action:

→ Subscriptions: Streaming or cloud services that only charge when used, with payments executing automatically based on activity.

→ Payroll: Employee salaries that are paid out in real time, with programmable logic handling taxes, bonuses, and benefits as funds are disbursed.

→ Mortgage payments: Payments that are automatically deducted as soon as income lands, updating balances and schedules in real-time.

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All three examples show how programmable money can react in real-time to environmental inputs and data-driven triggers. Its ultimate promise is a financial system where money doesn’t just move, it thinks.

Why it’s relevant now

If programmable money was visionary in 2015, it’s mission-critical in 2025. That’s because we’re entering an era of agentic commerce where software agents, powered by AI, act on behalf of users. These agents don’t take weekends off or wait for banking hours–they operate continuously, making thousands of micro-decisions that are automatic, contextual, and precise.

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As it turns out, these are exactly the characteristics that programmable money was built to handle:

Automatic

• AI agents are designed to initiate and settle payments on their own, without waiting for human approval.
• Programmable money ensures that when an opportunity arises, the system doesn’t need to wait for a human to click “send”.

Contextual

• AI agents are capable of splitting payments, routing them through multiple parties, and settling across currencies all at once.
• Programmable money enables highly complex and context-dependent financial logic to execute in seconds.

Precise

• AI agents are designed to handle transactions with pinpoint accuracy, whether it’s paying for API usage by the second or distributing revenue shares instantly.
• Programmable money ensures every transaction happens exactly as defined through pre-configured smart contract logic.

In short, programmable money is the only thing that can keep pace with autonomous agents and deliver what they’re designed to accomplish in real-time.

Closing thoughts

Programmable money isn’t just a buzz-worthy blockchain feature–it’s the foundation for the future of finance, the killer app that will enable AI agents to do what they do best. As agentic commerce scales, we’ll need money that can think, not just move; to operate continuously, not just on command. Programmable money is designed for just that, and we’d be failing to realize the full potential of AI-driven finance if we didn’t make full use of it.

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→ We're putting this into practice — read about our two steps into the agentic age, including Mesh Wallet-as-a-Service and our support for Google's AP2 protocol.

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