Hong Kong, April 21, 2026 — During the Web3 Festival, Dr. Xiao Feng, Chairman and CEO of HashKey Group, officially released the third white paper of the Web3 Economy series — "On-chain Finance and Tokenization in the Era of AI Agents."

This white paper revolves around the trend of AI Agents accelerating participation in production, collaboration, and transactional activities. It systematically explores the evolution direction of on-chain finance and tokenization infrastructure in the era of the agent economy and further organizes the development logic of the next stage of the Web3 economy from dimensions such as production relationships, value expression, institutional structure, and business paradigms.

Three Years of Continuous Research Responding to New Propositions of the Agent Economy

For the past three years, HashKey Group has been continuously researching the underlying logic of the Web3 economy, having already released two white papers.

HashKey believes that the industry evolution over the past two years has somewhat validated this judgment: stablecoins are gradually evolving into the cash settlement layer within the on-chain financial system, RWA is moving towards wider institutional-level applications, and blockchain has truly become an institutional tool that carries new types of production relationships.

Meanwhile, as agents gradually become important participants in a new round of production, collaboration, and transactional activities, the existing on-chain financial system also faces new upgrade requirements. This white paper is published against this backdrop, aiming to respond to a new core question: How should on-chain finance and tokenization carry out infrastructure upgrades in the new round when agents begin to participate in economic activities on a large scale?

On-chain Finance Reshaping the Institutional Foundation of the Agent Economy

The white paper points out that as AI agents increasingly participate in production, collaboration, and transactions, future economic activities will no longer merely involve interactions between people but will increasingly become high-frequency collaborations between people and agents, and between agents and agents.

The traditional financial system was not designed for the agent economy. Its operational logic relies on physical accounts, manual reviews, intermediary matchmaking, and phased clearing, making it more suitable for low-frequency, high-value, and highly manual economic activities. In the face of high-frequency, low-value, and automated collaboration demands among agents, the limitations of this system in terms of efficiency, cost, and response speed become more apparent, making it difficult to accommodate new financial demands such as real-time payments, instant settlement, and dynamic profit-sharing.

The white paper asserts that the value of on-chain finance lies here. Its advantages are not just speed but are more suited to serve agents as a new type of economic entity. First, blockchain tokens can break down the relationships of assets, rights, and profit distribution into finer units, allowing originally ambiguous rights relationships to transform into clearly defined, flexibly allocated digital units.

Second, smart contracts can embed transaction rules, profit-sharing logic, and execution conditions directly in code, enabling automatic completion as long as conditions are met, significantly reducing manual participation. Moreover, a unified on-chain ledger allows multiple participants to perform accounting, settlements, and profit distribution within the same system, reducing intermediary steps and lowering collaboration costs.

At the same time, the white paper defines the "dual token architecture" for the first time: AI Token is the "minimal semantic unit" of computational power consumption, while blockchain Token is the "minimal programmable unit" of value circulation. Additionally, the "three-token model" proposed by HashKey still holds significant importance in the era of the agent economy, where SBT (Soulbound Token—an on-chain credential tied to a blockchain identity that is non-transferable) is expected to play a greater role in agent identity recognition, rights management, and reputation accumulation.

Infrastructure Upgrade Towards a New Business Paradigm in the Agent Economy

The white paper also provides a detailed deconstruction of on-chain financial infrastructure, including the transition from double-entry bookkeeping to distributed ledgers, real-name accounts being replaced by cryptographic addresses convenient for agent invocation, and transactions directly equating to settlements becoming the ultimate form.

The white paper argues that only when real-world assets can be mapped onto the chain in a readable, callable, and settlement-capable manner can the agent economy potentially form a true closed loop with the real commercial system.

Following this logic, real-world asset tokenization is continuously advancing along three paths: currency tokenization, traditional financial asset tokenization, and physical and alternative asset tokenization. This process will not only promote changes in asset expression methods but will also reshape the global organization of liquidity and the structure of business collaboration.

HashKey Group states that in the future, it will continue to conduct research and practice around on-chain financial infrastructure, RWA, stablecoins, and the agent economy, advancing Web3 toward a developmental stage with greater commercial carrying capacity and better services for the real economy.

Full white paper: https://group.hashkey.com/rwa

About HashKey Holdings Limited

HashKey Holdings Limited ("HashKey" or "the Company", stock code: 3887.HK) is a mature comprehensive digital asset company in Asia, with businesses spanning globally, building a digital asset ecosystem through providing end-to-end financial infrastructure, technology, and investment management. The company offers trading facilitation services, on-chain services, and asset management services through its licensed digital asset platform.

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