BitGo launches innovation unit to design crypto’s next breakout application

BitGo Holdings has created BitGo Labs, a research and innovation unit tasked with designing, launching and validating what the crypto firm hopes will be digital assets' next major application. The unit announced its launch on Wednesday and will begin by concentrating on the intersection of artificial intelligence and crypto.

The company argues that the emerging AI economy needs crypto-native financial infrastructure to handle micropayments, enable instant settlement and secure assets. BitGo Labs is starting with several projects in that area. One is Gokubu, an already-live consumer application built around an AI-powered card intended to optimize user spending. It assigns users a personalized AI financial assistant aimed at helping them obtain better rewards and more value from transactions.

According to BitGo, the unit will also publish research, prototype protocols and reference implementations, and work with builders, academics and institutions across the crypto and AI communities. It said every project will be judged by whether it performs a function no existing system can and whether it measurably improves users' lives.

The initiative follows comments from BitGo CEO Mike Belshe, who told The Block earlier this month that AI agents will likely use stablecoins as their native currency. He also said humans will probably keep control over AI for longer than some observers expect.

Belshe was responding to Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes' argument that stablecoins and other digital currencies cannot serve as native currencies for AI agents because they cannot be converted directly into computing power. Belshe said agents might end up paying each other in a form of value they decide is suitable, but they will still need to interact with human systems.