Why Robots Need Financial Networks

The robotics industry is at a crucial turning point, thanks to the convergence of three major factors:

1) AI systems are beginning to understand, predict, and respond to highly dynamic physical environments;

2) Hardware is inexpensive enough and reliable enough for large-scale deployment;

3) Long-standing labor shortages exist in fields such as healthcare, education, manufacturing, and environmental cleanup.

The next important turning point is the construction of a global system to better meet the future. In this future, robots will be able to think, remember, and learn, working alongside us to tackle the challenges we face.

Currently, whether it’s door handles, passports, or ink signatures, we are in an infrastructure built for humans, excluding non-biological thinking robots, making it difficult for robots to become a vibrant global workforce, as they lack financial identity.

Humans can open bank accounts, hold passports, sign contracts, purchase insurance, and earn wages... Before robots can interact with the real world as first-class economic participants, they can only exist as "tool-like laborers" controlled by a few large companies, isolated from one another.

To bridge these gaps, Fabric is building a network for payments, identity, and capital allocation, enabling robots to operate as autonomous economic participants, which is the foundation of what we call the "robot economy."

Our Current Position

Robots have been deployed in warehouses, retail stores, hospitals, and distribution, but their scale remains limited due to a lack of connectivity and coordination systems.

The current model of robotic clusters (closed-loop model) usually looks like this:

• Single operator private funding;
• Purchase robots (capital expenditure, CAPEX), and handle operations internally (charging, maintenance, security, uptime, etc.);
• Sign bilateral contracts with customers;
• Manage payment settlements, with cash flow also managed internally.

This model is inefficient because each robotic cluster is an independent island, and the software architecture is fragmented. Moreover, this creates a structural mismatch: the demand for automation is global, but access to robotic networks, and the opportunities to participate in the robot economy, are limited to institutional and capital-rich operators.

Cryptography has unlocked an alternative model for global collaboration: permissionless markets, transparent participation mechanisms, programmable incentives, verifiable contribution tracking, and on-chain identity.

Fabric is applying these foundational components to the robotics field. To scale this model, robots will require the same things as humans: a unified open network.

Why We Are Building Fabric

The goal of Fabric is simple: to become the driving force behind the development of the robot economy. Essentially, the core of Fabric is an open system that anyone can participate in to coordinate, supply, and operate robots, deploying them into real-world scenarios and sharing in the rewards brought by automation.

The infrastructure built by Fabric is a coordination and allocation layer designed for the robotic workforce, allowing participants to access network services and contribute to robot deployments.

Fabric operates similarly to a market infrastructure layer: it coordinates participants to available work and settles fees in $ROBO ($ROBO does not represent shares, debt, profit sharing, or ownership of any legal entity or physical asset).

This coordination makes it possible for decentralized community participation in the purchase and deployment of robotic clusters. The stablecoins deposited by users support robot deployments and lay the groundwork for decentralized community operations and maintenance of the clusters, covering various aspects such as charging logistics, route planning/scheduling needs, maintenance, compliance monitoring, and uptime guarantees.

Subsequently, demand-side users pay for robotic labor using $ROBO. A portion of the protocol revenue may be used to purchase $ROBO on the open market. Coordinators involved in creating robots gain priority in task assignments at the initial operational stage, conditional on ongoing active participation, and do not represent ownership, profit rights, or any share of the robotic cluster economy. Participating entities are non-transferable and do not provide investment returns.

Over time, the network will become the coordination layer for the robotic workforce, optimizing deployments across different industries, regions, and tasks. The closest analogy is how modern financial protocols deploy stablecoin liquidity into yield strategies. Network fees and protocol activity will drive demand for $ROBO, making it a settlement token for robotic services, with its token value derived from operational utility, not speculation.

Why Choose Blockchain

For robots to act as economic entities, three elements are necessary.

Firstly, robots need a globally verifiable, persistent identity system. If robots are deployed in warehouses, cities, or delivery fleets, the whole world needs to know:

1) What kind of robot it is;

2) Who controls it;

3) What permissions it has;

4) How it has performed historically.

This identity layer is most easily realized in the form of an on-chain registry, allowing traceability information to be audited and interoperated between different operators and jurisdictions.

Secondly, robots need wallets. They must be able to receive payments, pay service fees (computation, maintenance, insurance), and autonomously settle contracts. Unlike humans, robots cannot open bank accounts, but they can hold cryptographic keys and operate on-chain accounts. This makes programmable settlements feasible at any given time.

Finally, robotic clusters can only scale when coordination is transparent, participation rights are standardized and easily accessible. Blockchain is the only system that can achieve global access, transparent operations, programmable settlements, and verifiable contribution tracking.

What’s Next?

The realization of large-scale robotic clusters requires actual deployment partnerships, mature operational systems, insurance frameworks, and reliable revenue contracts.

Fabric is still in its early stages. However, as robots gradually transition to having on-chain identities and interact in programmable labor markets, the robot economy is becoming increasingly feasible.

Fabric is indeed laying the foundation for coordinating, deploying, and accessing a global robotic workforce network.