Artificial intelligence agents are becoming financial actors at a speed that outpaces the infrastructure around them, according to a16z crypto. In a recent post, the company said that the real financial challenge is no longer intelligence, but knowledge.
Today’s brokers can work and move money, but they still don’t have ways to show who they are, show what they’re allowed to do, and more. That missing layer, the company suggests, is where blockchains can come in.
From KYC to KYA: a16z Makes the Case for Onchain Identity for AI Agents
In a recent blog post, a16z noted this who are not already helpful people the number of employees is about 100 to 1 in financial services. Yet agents remain “unbanked.”
“They can interact with financial systems, but not in a dynamic, reliable, or random way. They do not have the same mechanisms to verify their authorizations, operate independently of the platforms, or be held accountable for their actions,” the authors wrote. he wrote.
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The missing piece, according to the post, is a sharing feature for sponsors. This would be similar to SSL which would establish the communication between platforms.
Today’s strategies, it said, remain fragmented. According to a16z crypto,
“Although there are known efforts to solve this today, these methods are fragmented: integrated, first-of-its-kind systems on the one hand; crypto-native, open standards (such as x402 and the upcoming automatic concepts) on the other; and architectural extensions such as MCP (model protocol) that try to use a communication method. one agent to confirm to the other who he represents, what he is allowed to do, and how he is paid.
The post described a major improvement called “Know Your Agent” (KYA). This concept borrows from Know Your Customer (KYC). It requires privately signed credentials that link each agent to its principal, permissions, restrictions, and profile.
The company added that blockchains can act as a Political coordination layer for assistants. They provide portable information, flexible wallets, and proof-of-concept solutions that solve social applications, APIs, and marketplaces. Without a common standard, a16z warns, businesses will keep blocking agents on the firewall.
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a16z also identified four more opportunities beyond recognition: Centralized management of AI, payment rails do not have to sell agent-to-agent, high cost of verifying machine decisions at scale, and less user supervision as agents become more autonomous.
He said that tools based on blockchain, onchain governance, software programmable stablecoin, cryptographic audit procedures, and smartly implemented permissions, can close these gaps and support the reliable economy of the agent.
A note The AI Agent Economy Has a Known Bottleneck: Blockchain Could Break the Rails appeared for the first time BeInCrypto.
