Crypto+AI has come a long way, and many bubbles have already been popped. With the rise of x402, Web3's focus is gradually shifting to the niche track of AI agent economy. Turning AI agents from chatbots into traders capable of autonomously executing transactions, managing assets, performing cross-chain operations, and even handling complex strategies. But there's a paradoxical issue here: if AI agents directly control private keys or transaction permissions, the risks are extremely high; if their permissions are restricted, their capabilities are limited. x402, as a native on-chain payment protocol, addresses the issue of empowering AI agents, laying the foundation for economic autonomy in the agent economy. Meanwhile, for user rights confirmation, it requires support from trustworthy cryptographic infrastructure. There are many projects in this space. @LitProtocol raised $17.7 million, focusing on building a decentralized key management infrastructure network. Its operating mechanism is essentially decentralized nodes storing private keys in shards, executing signature and encryption operations, and combining programmable policies to allow users and AI agents to securely and automatically manage assets, perform cross-chain transactions, and handle data operations, all while maintaining ultimate control. The v0 mainnet has been running stably for over a year, managing assets worth over $450 million and processing more than 36 million signature and encryption requests. Projects like Gitcoin, Lens, Humanity Protocol, and hundreds of others are backed by Lit Protocol. What interests me most is that LITKEY didn’t immediately launch on CEX but instead partnered with Base’s @AerodromeFi for a community launch, with trading on exchanges starting a week later. The initial price is determined by community liquidity, and if you’re optimistic about the long-term, you can also participate in its staking activities. This approach seems to better reflect the true value of tokens with real-world applications. Recently, many infrastructure projects have started rushing to launch, but I tend to favor those with real use cases. Just my personal opinion, not investment advice—make sure to do your own research before jumping in.