AI Agent-Driven Payment Infrastructure: A New Paradigm in the Encryption Industry

For the past century, humanity has been at the core of economic activity. However, the rise of AI technology is changing this landscape, gradually making machines "active economic entities"—AI Agents.

Recently, Tether announced the integration of USDT into the Bitcoin ecosystem. Behind this trend, a transformation is brewing: AI Agent-driven payment infrastructure is propelling the encryption industry into a new wave of innovation. From the consensus layer of Bitcoin to the execution layer of smart contracts, and then to the AI-driven application layer, the encryption industry may welcome an innovative model of AI + PayFi + BTC infrastructure, facilitating the transition from Web2 to Web3. The future of large-scale applications is gradually becoming a reality.

1. Stablecoin: The Cornerstone of a New Era in Global Payments

The programmability, cross-border usability, and increasingly clear regulatory framework of stablecoins are expected to make them the standard settlement currency for global payments. As a cryptocurrency-friendly policy environment takes shape, the application scenarios for stablecoins will gradually expand. In the next 10 years, stablecoin payments may present the following development trends:

Short term (1-3 years): Stablecoins will dominate cross-border remittances, providing a faster and cheaper alternative than traditional systems. Payment cards related to encryption will simplify consumption, connecting on-chain wealth with real-world transactions.

Medium term (3-7 years): Enterprises will increasingly adopt stablecoin payments due to the low fees, instant settlement, and programmability of stablecoins. Companies will be able to seamlessly convert between cryptocurrency and fiat currency.

Long-term (7 years and above): Stablecoins will become mainstream fiat currencies, widely accepted for payments and even tax payments, fundamentally transforming traditional financial infrastructure.

Stablecoins also provide entrepreneurs with a more accessible platform to develop new payment products without intermediaries, minimum balances, or proprietary SDKs. It is estimated that medium and large enterprises using stablecoin solutions may increase profits by 2%. Some countries have attempted to use stablecoins for international trade. An increasing number of cases indicate that stablecoins are approaching their optimal market positioning.

2. AI Agent: A New User Experience Layer for Future Applications

We are entering the "Era of AI Agents as Independent Market Participants". AI is not only used for executing single tasks but also involves AI-driven financial transactions, smart supply chain management, and providing services for creators, developers, and businesses. AI agents can even negotiate, trade, settle autonomously, and optimize resource utilization.

At the end of last year, AI Agents began to redefine the application scenarios of DApps. Some AI Agents can autonomously use tokens for transactions, generate content, and even manage encryption wallets and assets. The evolution of this capability has given rise to new encryption narratives, such as Virtual Protocol—a protocol similar to Pump.fun, but its "Pump" objects are various AI Agents.

The continuous evolution of AI Agents, coupled with convenient issuance platforms, has created significant market opportunities for the AI Agent + Crypto concept. AI is becoming an active participant in the on-chain ecosystem, driving the ecological development of blockchain applications.

In the future, AI will become the user experience layer of blockchain technology, connecting the application layer and the infrastructure. For example, AI can automatically recommend and execute DeFi operations based on user needs and market information. In daily life, AI personal financial assistants may manage taxes, insurance, and rental income and expenditures, optimize investment portfolios, and even automatically execute trades.

To ensure security, Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) have become a key infrastructure, ensuring that AI Agent behaviors conform to preset logic by isolating the computing environment. The AI may also operate Depin nodes or validate data, becoming the core executor of distributed systems.

The workflows and application scenarios of these AI Agents are sketching out a new "machine economy" landscape. From gamers to Depin managers, from content creation to financial strategies, AI Agents will become the core driving force of the on-chain ecosystem.

3. The Predicament of the Existing Payment System

Although AI Agents will become an important force in the market, the existing payment systems have many limitations:

3.1 Economic Imbalance of Micro-Payments

The high fees of traditional payment networks make high-frequency microtransactions by AI agents infeasible. For example, an AI trading strategy that executes 1000 transactions per second, each amounting to only $0.0001, would incur a fee of at least $0.30 per transaction on traditional payment networks, making this cost structure unsustainable for the AI economy.

3.2 The fatal flaw of settlement speed

AI agents require millisecond-level settlement, but the existing payment systems fall far short of this.

• Credit Card Payment: Usually takes 1-3 days to complete settlement.
• International transfer: It may take 2-5 days.
• Cryptocurrency payment: An average of 10 minutes or longer.

3.3 Limitations of Centralized Architecture

AI agents are essentially global, but traditional payment systems are limited by bank accounts, fiat currency compliance, and regional payment regulations:

• Dependence on bank accounts: Most payment systems require parties to have bank accounts, which AI agents cannot open.
• Centralized control: Existing systems rely on a few financial institutions for approval, and AI agent trading may be rejected due to regulatory issues.
• International payment barriers: AI agents face cumbersome compliance requirements for cross-border transactions.

3.4 Five Core Requirements of AI Economic Payment System

The payment system serving AI in the future must possess:

1. Micro-payment capability: extremely low fees, close to zero cost.
2. Millisecond-level transaction settlement: real-time settlement, rather than waiting for several minutes or days.
3. Decentralization and Anti-Censorship: AI agents need to trade autonomously, without relying on centralized institutions.
4. Global Availability: Supports cross-border transactions, avoiding reliance on bank accounts.
5. Intelligent Payment Protocol: Seamless interaction with AI agents, supporting automatic settlement, intelligent routing, and other functions.

4. The Hope and Limitations of Blockchain Payment

Blockchain technology brings hope to the AI economy, but mainstream blockchains still face issues:

High costs of payments on the Ethereum network

Ethereum is the main infrastructure for DeFi, but high transaction costs make it difficult for the AI economy to adopt. During network congestion, simple transactions may require Gas fees of $10-50, making it hard to support the high-frequency trading demands of AI agents.

4.2 The speed and centralization issues of other high-performance public chains

Some high-performance public chains offer faster transaction processing capabilities, but they are more centralized, posing security risks. Some public chains have experienced multiple outages, affecting transaction stability. Most public chains rely on a few validating nodes, which may impact their decentralized attributes.

4.3 The scalability bottleneck of the Bitcoin mainnet

Bitcoin, as the most secure and decentralized blockchain, has unparalleled security, but its payment capabilities are limited. The mainnet transaction throughput is low (only 7 transactions per second), and when faced with a large number of transaction requests, gas fees surge, making it unsuitable for small payments by AI agents.

4.4 Lightning Network: A New Stage for Stablecoin Payments

The Lightning Network, as a second-layer scaling solution for Bitcoin, relies on the security of the Bitcoin network to achieve instant, low-cost, and scalable transaction capabilities through bidirectional payment channels. It currently has over 15,000 nodes and over 50,000 channels, demonstrating strong ecological potential.

However, the Lightning Network previously only supported Bitcoin as a payment currency, resulting in limited application scenarios. The introduction of stablecoins is crucial, as only currencies with stable value can be widely accepted and used for everyday payments.

Tether integrates USDT into the Lightning Network, which is of great significance. This not only marks the recognition of the security and usability of the Lightning Network but also brings real users and transaction fee revenue to the network. This signifies that the era of the Lightning Network truly playing its role has arrived after years of development.

5. Everything is in place, just waiting for the favorable wind to come.

The explosive growth of AI Agents is giving rise to a trillion-level machine economy, but traditional payment networks and existing blockchain solutions struggle to meet its demands. The integration of USDT into the Lightning Network seems to provide a key piece of the puzzle for the industry — near-zero-cost, censorship-resistant payment channels, combined with the liquidity of stablecoins, perfectly fitting the micropayment and real-time transaction scenarios of AI agents.

AISA was born out of necessity; it is not just a simple stacking of technology stacks, but a "financial operating system" tailored for the AI economy, allowing the AI economy to truly break through payment limitations and move towards a future of autonomous interaction. In the future AI economy, payment equals efficiency, and transactions equal intelligence.

6. AISA: The Integration of Lightning Network, Stablecoins, and AI Agents

6.1 AISA's four-layer technical architecture

The AISA architecture is divided into four core levels:

a. Settlement Layer:

• Based on the Bitcoin network (L1) and the Lightning Network (L2)
• Advantages: High security and high efficiency

b. Payment Layer:

• Multi-chain support: Compatible with Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, etc.
• Stablecoin Integration: AISA's native aiUSD circulates on the Lightning Network with USDT and USDC through the Taproot Assets protocol.

c. Smart Payment Layer:

• AI Native Protocol (AIP): Empowering AI agents with autonomous decision-making capabilities
• Dynamic Routing: Real-time analysis of transaction fees and network conditions, automatically switching payment paths.
• Automated micropayments: on-demand settlement, no need for human intervention
• Liquidity Management: AI agents can dynamically allocate funds to liquidity pools.

d. Governance Layer:

• DAO mechanism: Token holders govern together
• Incentive mechanism: Liquidity providers stake to earn rewards, and a portion of the transaction fees is used for token burning.

6.2 How does AISA redefine AI economic payments?

AISA is designed specifically for the AI economy, integrating the efficiency of the lightning network, the liquidity of stablecoins, and the intelligent decision-making capabilities of AI native protocols to build a payment network with nearly zero cost and millisecond-level response. AI agents can autonomously complete micropayments, settle DePIN node rewards in real time, and even optimize cross-chain transaction paths.

From cross-border enterprise payments to automated financial strategies, AISA's adaptability is driving the rise of the machine economy. Through multi-chain compatibility and DAO governance, AISA not only addresses the fragmentation issues of the existing payment ecosystem but also sets new standards for human-machine collaboration in the decentralized era. AISA's vision is to allow the machine economy to develop freely within a frictionless intelligent network.

7. Conclusion

When AI agents autonomously complete transactions, investments, and even pay taxes on the blockchain, payments become the circulatory system of the machine economy. The Lightning Network provides the vessels, stablecoins act as the blood, and AI agents become the heart. This silent revolution is illuminating the future of the payment ecosystem. Future payments will no longer belong to any institution or country but to every autonomously operating AI and participating nodes in the co-construction. Here, code is law, efficiency is justice, and true innovation is just beginning.