As artificial intelligence (AI) agents become autonomous—executing tasks, buying data, and hiring services—they require a trust layer that only blockchain can provide to operate safely and at scale. Blockchain proponents believe it is the only technology that provides the fundamental capabilities essential for the agentic economy.

From creating a verifiable and transparent history of all agent activity to providing the rails for programmable money and instant value transfer, the blockchain is quickly becoming an indispensable technology for AI agents. According to Rodrigo Coelho, CEO of Edge and Node, without blockchain, “these autonomous exchanges would happen behind closed application programming interfaces (APIs),” lacking visibility and accountability.

While blockchain is indeed destined to become a key enabler of AI agents, Coelho believes the agentic economy’s progress will depend on how quickly the necessary infrastructure is built.

“The main challenge now is scale: millions of small transactions and interactions per second. Building the infrastructure for that, from efficient settlement to shared reputation frameworks, will define the next phase of the agentic economy,” the CEO stated.

Until recently, the focus of many AI teams was deploying the next best thing. However, the rise of autonomous agents that make independent decisions has forced them to seriously consider standards. A unified set of standards would encourage organizations to adopt best practices in AI development, ensuring that systems are built with safety and ethics in mind.

For standardization proponents, a collaborative framework can provide guidelines aimed at reducing bias in AI systems. Standards in data collection, model training, and testing promote fairness and equal treatment across different demographics.

However, as Coelho explained in a written response to questions from Bitcoin.com News, “standards only emerge when ecosystems hit a breaking point”—when interoperability and coordination become existential problems. He asserts that the AI industry has reached this point and a remedy is needed now, or else the “agent economy can’t scale.”

To this end, Coelho’s Edge and Node has introduced a solution called Ampersend, which acts as the command center for the agentic economy. It is built upon open standards like Coinbase’s x402 payment protocol, Google’s A2A communication, and Ethereum’s ERC-8004 agent discovery standard.

“By building on, rather than replacing, open frameworks, we’re ensuring that the ecosystem remains interoperable, scalable, and inclusive, rather than locked into proprietary systems,” Coelho said.

Turning to regulation, Coelho said while this will likely impact how the agent economy evolves, his team views this as an opportunity, not an obstacle. The real challenge, the CEO argued, is “ensuring that innovation and policy evolve together.”

Coelho also argued that once agents operate autonomously, the system becomes opaque without proper observability. He said:

“Agent observability is about restoring transparency and accountability in this environment. It ensures every action is traceable, auditable, and controllable. Without that, coordination breaks down, and risks financial, operational, or security-related multiply.”

According to Coelho, Edge and Node’s solution introduces that visibility layer, which helps teams manage complexity, mitigate risk, and build trust as AI and blockchain systems converge at scale.

• Why do AI agents need blockchain? Blockchain adds transparency, trust, and secure value transfer for autonomous agent operations.
• What’s the biggest challenge for the agentic economy? Scaling millions of micro-transactions and building shared infrastructure is the key hurdle.
• Why are standards important now? Autonomous agents need unified frameworks to ensure safety, fairness, and interoperability.
• What does Edge & Node’s Ampersend do? It provides observability and coordination tools to manage agent activity across open blockchain protocols.

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