AI-Driven Payment Infrastructure: A New Wave of Innovation in the Encryption Industry

Introduction

For the past century, humans have been the basic units of economic activity. However, the rise of AI technology is reshaping this pattern, transforming machines from passive tools into "active economic agents" - AI Agent.

Recently, some important trends are brewing a transformation: AI Agent-driven payment infrastructure is pushing the encryption industry into a new wave of innovation with a breaking-through momentum. From the consensus layer of BTC to the execution layer of smart contracts, and now to the AI-driven application layer, the encryption industry is likely to welcome a paradigm innovation of AI + Pay Fi + BTC Infra, which will force Web2 to self-reform towards Web3—the future of large-scale adoption is gradually becoming a reality.

1. Stablecoins: The Cornerstone of a New Era in Global Payments

The programmability, cross-border applicability, and increasingly clear regulatory framework of stablecoins are expected to make them the standard settlement currency for global payments. As the regulatory environment improves, the application scenarios for stablecoins will gradually expand. In the next 10 years, stablecoin payments may show the following development trends:

Short-term (1-3 years): Stablecoins will dominate cross-border remittances, providing a faster and cheaper alternative than traditional systems. Encryption-related payment cards will simplify consumption and build a bridge between on-chain wealth and real-world transactions.

Medium term (3-7 years): Enterprises will increasingly adopt stablecoin payments due to the low fees, instant settlement, and programmability of stablecoins. Companies will be able to seamlessly convert between cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies, providing a dual-track payment option.

Long-term (7 years and above): Stablecoins will become mainstream fiat currencies, widely accepted for payments and even tax payments, completely disrupting traditional financial infrastructure.

In addition to payment convenience, stablecoins also provide entrepreneurs with a more accessible platform to develop new payment products. Businesses using stablecoin solutions may see an increase of about 2% in profits. Furthermore, some countries have attempted to use stablecoins for international trade. Stablecoins are gradually becoming the most economical and fastest global payment method.

2. AI Agents: The New User Experience Layer for Future Applications

We are entering the "Era of AI Agents as Independent Market Participants." AI can not only perform single tasks but also autonomously negotiate, trade, settle, and optimize resource utilization.

AI Agents have begun to redefine the application scenarios of DApps. Some AI Agents are capable of autonomously using tokens for transactions, generating content, and even managing their own encryption wallets and assets. This evolution has given rise to new encryption narratives, such as Virtual Protocol—a protocol similar to Pump.fun, but its "Pump" objects are various AI Agents.

The evolution capabilities of AI Agents and convenient issuance platforms have opened up huge market opportunities for the AI Agent + Crypto concept. AI is becoming an active participant in the on-chain ecosystem, driving blockchain applications from being tool-oriented to becoming ecosystem-oriented.

In the future, AI will become the user experience layer of blockchain technology, connecting the application layer and the infrastructure. For example, AI can autonomously execute on-chain DeFi operations based on user intent and preferences, without users needing to understand the underlying technical details. In daily life, an AI personal finance assistant may autonomously manage taxes, insurance, and investment portfolios.

To ensure security, Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) have become key infrastructure, isolating the computing environment to ensure that AI Agent behaviors adhere to predefined logic and are not manipulated by external forces.

The workflows and application scenarios of these AI Agents are outlining a brand new picture of the "machine economy", and AI Agents will become the core driving force of the on-chain ecosystem.

3. The Dilemma of the Existing Payment System

Although AI Agents will become an important force in the market, the existing payment systems have many limitations:

3.1 Economic Imbalance of Micro-Payments

The high fixed fees of traditional payment networks make micropayments economically unfeasible. For example, a transaction of $0.0001 might incur fees 3000 times higher.

3.2 The fatal flaw of settlement speed

The settlement speed of traditional payment networks lags far behind the demands of the AI economy:

• Credit Card Payment: 1-3 days
• International transfer: 2-5 days
• Cryptocurrency payment: an average of 10 minutes or longer

The AI economy requires millisecond-level settlement, which the existing system finds difficult to meet.

3.3 Limitations of Centralized Architecture

Traditional payment systems are deeply trapped in issues such as bank accounts and fiat currency compliance, making them unsuitable for global AI agents:

• Bank account dependency: AI agents find it difficult to open bank accounts
• Centralized control: Transactions may be rejected due to regulatory or compliance issues.
• International payment barriers: Cross-border transactions face cumbersome compliance requirements.

The Five Core Needs of the 3.4 AI Economic Payment System

The payment system serving AI in the future must have:

1. Micro-payment capability: Extremely low or even close to zero transaction fees.
2. Millisecond-level transaction settlement: real-time settlement
3. Decentralization and anti-censorship: do not rely on centralized financial institutions
4. Global availability: Supports cross-border transactions, avoiding reliance on bank accounts.
5. Intelligent Payment Protocol: Supports automatic settlement, smart trading routing, and other functions.

4. The Hopes and Limitations of Blockchain Payments

Blockchain technology brings hope to the AI economy, but mainstream blockchains still face challenges:

High costs of 4.1 ETH network payment

High transaction costs and limited throughput make it difficult for ETH to support the high-frequency trading demands of AI agents.

4.2 Other high-performance public chain issues

Some high-performance public chains offer faster transaction processing capabilities, but they are more centralized, which raises security risks and stability issues.

The scalability bottleneck of the 4.3 BTC mainnet

Although the BTC mainnet has high security, its transaction throughput is low and gas fees fluctuate greatly, making it unsuitable for small payments by AI agents.

4.4 Lightning Network: A New Stage for Stablecoin Payments

The Lightning Network, as a layer two scaling solution for BTC, offers instant, low-cost, and scalable transaction capabilities. However, prior to the emergence of the Taproot Assets protocol, the Lightning Network only supported BTC payments, resulting in limited application scenarios.

The integration of stablecoins brings new possibilities to the Lightning Network. Recently, a major stablecoin issuer integrated its stablecoin into the Lightning Network, marking a new development opportunity for the Lightning Network.

5. The Arrival of New Opportunities

The explosive growth of AI Agents is giving rise to a trillion-level machine economy, but traditional payment networks and existing blockchain solutions struggle to meet its demands. The integration of stablecoins into the Lightning Network seems to provide a key piece of the puzzle for the industry – nearly zero-cost, censorship-resistant payment channels, combined with the liquidity of stablecoins, perfectly suited for the micropayments and real-time transaction scenarios of AI agents.

This trend has prompted the emergence of new payment solutions tailored for the AI economy, creating a "financial operating system" that allows the AI economy to truly break free from the shackles of payment and move towards a future of autonomous interaction.

6. New Payment Infrastructure: Reconstructing the Payment Foundation of the AI Economy

6.1 Four-layer technical architecture

a. Settlement Layer

• Underlying network: BTC network (L1) + Lightning Network (L2)
• Advantages: high security, millisecond transaction confirmation, nearly zero fees

b. Payment Layer

• Multi-chain support: Compatible with multiple public chains
• Stablecoin integration: Supports multiple stablecoins circulating on the Lightning Network.

c. Smart Payment Layer

• AI Native Protocol: Empowering AI Agents with Autonomous Decision-Making Capabilities
• Dynamic Routing: Automatically switch to the optimal payment path
• Automated micropayments: on-demand settlement, no manual intervention
• Liquidity Management: AI agents can dynamically allocate funds to liquidity pools.

d. Governance Layer

• DAO mechanism: Token holders govern together
• Incentive mechanism: Liquidity providers receive revenue sharing

6.2 redefining AI economic payment

This new type of payment infrastructure is tailor-made for the AI economy, integrating the efficiency of the lightning network, the liquidity of stablecoins, and the intelligent decision-making capabilities of AI-native protocols. It builds a payment network with almost zero cost and millisecond-level response, breaking through the limitations of traditional systems.

AI agents can autonomously complete micropayments, real-time settlements, and cross-chain transaction optimization within this network. From enterprise payments to automated financial strategies, this infrastructure is driving the rise of the machine economy. Through multi-chain compatibility and DAO governance, it not only addresses the fragmentation issue of the payment ecosystem but also sets new standards for human-machine collaboration in the decentralized era.

7. Conclusion

When AI agents can autonomously carry out various economic activities on-chain, payments will become the circulatory system of the machine economy. The Lightning Network provides the vessels, stablecoins act as the blood, and AI agents become the heart—this silent revolution is reshaping the future of the payment ecosystem. Future payments will no longer belong to a particular institution or country, but to every autonomously operating AI and the nodes participating in co-construction. In this new world, code is law, efficiency is justice, and true innovation has only just begun.