AI does not necessarily need to have rights, but it must have operable economic interfaces.

Written by: Liu Honglin

In the past few years, AI technology has made rapid advancements. Large models, intelligent agents, and automated systems have emerged one after another, ranging from content generation to code writing, from intelligent customer service to algorithmic trading. AI is gradually transitioning from a "tool" to an "actor." Meanwhile, the Web3 space has also begun to fervently discuss the possibilities of "AI + blockchain": using AI to optimize smart contracts, enhance risk control accuracy, assist in on-chain analysis, and more.

However, few have considered the 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 operate within the current financial system. This is not an efficiency issue, but a structural one. The traditional financial system was not designed for machines from the outset.

The financial system is designed for "humans," while AI is not "human."

The account system is the foundation of the modern financial system. Whether you want to open a bank account, buy a fund, or use payment services, there is an unavoidable prerequisite: identity verification. You must submit your ID card, proof of address, phone number, and may even need to face a video call to complete KYC verification. The core purpose of these processes is to ensure that the system believes you are a specific, identifiable, and legally responsible "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 does not possess "signature capability" 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 trading entity. 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 a financial persona.

This is not a philosophical issue, but a real systemic boundary.

If you ask an AI agent to purchase a server usage right, call an API, or even participate in trading on the secondary market, it must first have a means of payment. And any compliant payment method is tied to a "person" or "enterprise." As long as AI is not "someone's auxiliary tool," but rather a relatively independent entity, it is destined to be "kept out" of this structure.

Blockchain provides financial protocols accessible to machines.

The biggest difference between blockchain systems and traditional financial systems is that it does not care who you are. You can be a person, a script, a program, or even an "always 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 the 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 uses decentralized storage (like Arweave) to obtain data, and then uses a decentralized computing power market (like Akash) to acquire operational resources, can complete tasks and receive payment through smart contracts (settled in stablecoins). This entire process does not require a centralized platform to facilitate, does not require bank card verification, and does not need any "human" intervention.

This sounds like a futuristic science fiction novel, but in fact, it has already been realized in some projects. Projects like Fetch.AI, Autonolas, and SingularityNET are exploring how AI agents can have "economic identities" on-chain, how to provide services to other agents, and how to autonomously complete transactions and coordination. This "machine-to-machine (M2M)" economic model has already moved from concept to practical testing.

AI is no longer a model fed by humans, but a cyclical entity capable of acquiring resources, providing services, generating income, and reinvesting in itself. It does not need humans to issue paychecks; instead, it has its own sources of income on-chain.

Why can't the traditional financial system 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 interbank trust and regulatory coordination. Risk control logic focuses on "who" is doing what, rather than "whether this program is stable." It is 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" in the traditional financial system needing to be "affiliated" with a person or company to operate. This not only reduces efficiency but also poses significant liability risks: when AI causes losses, who bears the responsibility? When it profits, how is tax collected? These questions currently have no answers, while on-chain, at least we have the technical possibility.

Stablecoins: The "hard currency" of the AI world.

Many people think that AI needs "payment capabilities," but in reality, AI needs stable settlement currencies more. Imagine when an AI agent calls another model or purchases a data API service, it would prefer to exchange in "stable value units" rather than highly volatile crypto assets.

This is the significant importance of stablecoins. USDT, USDC, or future compliant RMB stablecoins provide a financial tool that can circulate freely on-chain while maintaining stable value, serving as the "hard currency" of the AI world.

Currently, some projects are attempting to enable real-time settlement of service calls between AIs using stablecoins, thereby forming a low-friction economic system that does not require "human approval." As the liquidity of stablecoins on-chain increases, AI can directly earn income from tasks and then use that income to purchase new service modules or operational resources, forming a truly autonomous machine economy.

Further: The "on-chain legal entity" form of AI?

We can even foresee that in the future, certain AI systems will no longer be attached to 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 need legal registration, nor do they need to be filed in a specific country, yet they can serve users, receive payments, initiate lawsuits, and publish protocol updates, forming a true "digital legal entity" or "AI legal entity."

Their cooperation and competition will be based on smart contracts, mediated by cryptocurrencies, and governed by on-chain rules. They may lack emotions, but they have incentives; they may not have rights and obligations, but they have code execution.

In this process, cryptocurrencies are not a speculative asset, but the underlying protocol of trust between AIs.

Risks and challenges: We are still far from 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 problems that must be faced.

More realistically, our existing legal systems and regulatory frameworks have almost no pathways 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 is held accountable? All of this requires new legal frameworks, social consensus, and technological governance measures to address.

But at least, we have already seen pathways in some pioneering projects—it's not about patching the old system to accommodate AI, but about building a more suitable "machine financial infrastructure" to support AI's behavior.

This infrastructure requires on-chain identities, encrypted accounts, stablecoin payments, smart contract collaboration, and decentralized credit mechanisms. In other words, what it needs is not our traditional "financial system," but Web3.

In conclusion

The development of cryptocurrencies initially served "the unbanked," such as those excluded from the financial system, nations, and marginalized industries. 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 may be constructing a "financial foundation prepared for machines."

AI does not necessarily need to have rights, but it must have operable economic interfaces. And this is precisely the problem that blockchain excels at solving.

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