Mankun Lawyer | AI needs Crypto Assets, not TradFi

In the past few years, AI technology has made rapid advances. Large models, intelligent agents, and automated systems have emerged one after another, from content generation to code writing, from intelligent customer service to algorithmic trading, AI is gradually moving from being a "tool" to becoming an "actor." At the same time, the Web3 sector has also begun to fervently discuss the possibilities of "AI + Blockchain": using AI to optimize smart contracts, enhance risk control accuracy, assist with on-chain analysis, and so on. But very few people think in reverse: does AI itself need Blockchain? If we view AI as a participant that gradually detaches from human control and possesses autonomous behavior capabilities, it finds it nearly impossible to navigate the current financial system. This is not an efficiency problem, but a structural issue. The traditional financial system was not designed for machines from the very beginning. The financial system is designed for "people", while AI is not "people". The account system is the foundation of the modern financial system. Whether you want to open a bank card, buy a fund, or use payment services, there is a prerequisite that cannot be avoided: identity verification. You have to submit your ID card, proof of address, phone number, and may even need to undergo a face-to-face video recording to complete the KYC review. The core purpose of these processes is to make the system believe that you are a specific, identifiable, and legally accountable "natural person" or "legal entity." But AI does not belong to either of these categories. It has no nationality, no ID card, no tax number, and it does not possess "signature capacity" or "legal capacity." AI cannot open a bank account, cannot register a company, and certainly cannot independently become a party to a contract or a transaction object. This means it cannot receive money, cannot make payments, and cannot hold assets. In summary: AI is a "non-human ghost" in the existing financial system, lacking financial personality. This is not a philosophical question, but rather the real system boundaries. You let an AI agent buy a server usage right, call an API, or even participate in trading on the secondary market; it must first have a payment method. And any compliant payment method is inherently linked to a "person" or "enterprise." As long as the AI is not "anyone's subordinate tool" but a relatively independent entity, it is destined to be "kept out" of this structure. Blockchain provides machine-accessible financial protocols. The biggest difference between blockchain systems and traditional financial systems is that it doesn’t care who you are. You could be a person, a script, a program, or even a "perpetually online" automated agent. As long as you can generate a pair of private keys and an address, you can receive payments, make payments, sign smart contracts, and participate in consensus mechanisms on-chain. In other words, Blockchain is inherently suitable for "non-human users" to participate in economic activities. For example: An AI model deployed on the Blockchain, assuming it obtains data through decentralized storage (such as Arweave), and acquires computing resources through a decentralized computing market (such as Akash), receives payment through smart contracts (settled in stablecoins) after completing the task. This entire process does not require a centralized platform for matchmaking, does not need bank card verification, and does not require any "human" intervention. This sounds like something out of a futuristic science fiction novel, but in fact, it has already taken shape in some projects. Projects like Fetch.AI, Autonolas, and SingularityNET are exploring how AI Agents can have an "economic identity" on-chain, how they can provide services to other Agents, and how they can autonomously complete transactions and coordinate. This form of "Machine-to-Machine (M2M)" economy has moved from concept to practical testing. AI is no longer a model that relies on humans for feeding; it is a self-sustaining entity that can acquire resources, provide services, generate revenue, and reinvest in itself. It does not require humans to issue payrolls but has its own sources of income on-chain. Why can't traditional financial systems adapt to this scenario? Because its entire infrastructure is designed around the assumption of "human behavior." The transaction process in traditional payment systems involves someone initiating, someone approving, and someone supervising. The clearing process relies on trust and regulatory coordination between banks. Risk control logic focuses on "who" is doing what, rather than "whether this program is stable." It's hard to imagine an AI wallet opening a bank account through facial recognition, nor can we expect an AI model to complete tax declarations to regulatory authorities. This leads to all transactions related to "non-human users" needing to be "anchored" to a person or company to operate in the traditional financial system. This is not only inefficient, but more importantly, there is a huge liability risk: when AI causes losses, who bears the responsibility? When it makes a profit, how is taxation handled? These questions have no answers today, while on-chain, at least we have the technical possibility. Stablecoin: The "hard currency" of the AI world Many people think that AI requires "payment ability," but in fact, AI needs a stable settlement currency more. Imagine that when an AI Agent calls another model or purchases a data API service, it prefers to exchange in "stable value units" rather than highly volatile crypto assets. This is exactly the important significance of stablecoins. USDT, USDC, or future compliant RMB stablecoins provide a financial tool that can freely circulate on-chain while maintaining stable value, serving as the "hard currency" in the AI world. Currently, some projects are attempting to enable service calls between AIs to be settled in real-time using stablecoins, thereby creating a low-friction economic system that does not require "human approval." As the liquidity of on-chain stablecoins increases, AIs can directly earn revenue from tasks and then use this revenue to purchase new service modules or operating resources, forming a truly autonomous machine economy. Further: AI's "on-chain legal entity" form? We can even foresee that in the future, certain AI systems will no longer be dependent on a specific company or research institution, but will exist in the form of DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) or on-chain protocols. These AI Agents will have their own funding pools, community governance mechanisms, and on-chain identity systems. They do not require legal registration or filing in any country, yet can serve users, receive payments, initiate lawsuits, and release protocol updates, forming a true "digital legal entity" or "AI legal entity." Their cooperation and competition will be based on smart contracts, mediated by cryptocurrency, and governed by on-chain rules. There may be no emotions between them, but there are incentives; no rights and obligations, but there is code execution. In this process, cryptocurrency is not a speculative asset, but the underlying protocol of trust between AIs. Risks and Challenges: We are still far from being ready. Of course, none of this comes without challenges. The key custody issues of AI wallets, economic losses caused by model abuse, the verifiability of on-chain identities, the legal eligibility of cross-border AI entities, and the ethical boundaries of algorithmic behavior are all new challenges that must be faced. More realistically, our existing legal system and regulatory framework provide almost no path for "non-human actors." AI cannot sue others, nor can it be sued; it cannot pay taxes, nor can it enjoy property rights; once it goes out of control or is attacked, who is responsible and who will be held accountable? All of this requires new legal structures, social consensus, and technological governance measures to address. But at least we have seen a path in some pioneering projects — it does not rely on patching old systems to accommodate AI, but instead builds a more suitable "machine financial infrastructure" to support the behavior of AI. This infrastructure requires on-chain identity, encrypted accounts, stablecoin payments, smart contracts collaboration, and decentralized credit mechanisms. In other words, what it needs is not our traditional "financial system", but Web3. Written at the end The development of cryptocurrency initially served those "without accounts," such as people, nations, and marginalized industries excluded from the financial system. Now, it may become the only option for "identity-less machines" to participate in economic activities. If traditional finance is a pyramid built for human society, then blockchain and cryptocurrencies are perhaps constructing a "financial foundation prepared for machines." AI does not necessarily have to possess rights, but it must have operable economic interfaces. And this is precisely the problem that Blockchain is best at solving.

/END. Original author: Lawyer Liu Honglin