The Impact of AI Token Trading Replacing Traditional Currency in AI Technology Enterprises on Corporate Performance

Abstract

The intangible, instantly delivered, and continuously consumed nature of AI compute services exposes three inherent frictions in fiat-based settlement: temporal mismatches, coarse pricing granularity, and cross-border delays. This study investigates whether AI-Token—the atomic unit of model inference and training—can serve as a more efficient medium of exchange than fiat currency in B2B AI transactions, and how such a shift affects firm performance. Integrating transaction cost economics, agency theory, and corporate finance, it constructs a three-layer framework that traces how Token's roles as a means of payment, cost item, and asset class generate distinct causal pathways to revenue-side, cost-side, and asset-side performance. Employing theoretical synthesis and deductive analysis, this paper provides a unified conceptual architecture for future empirical research on programmable settlement media in the digital economy.