AI Needs Blockchain: Building a New Foundation for Machine Finance

In recent years, AI technology has advanced rapidly. Large models, intelligent agents, and automated systems have emerged one after another, ranging from content generation to code writing, from intelligent customer service to algorithmic trading. AI is gradually evolving from a mere "tool" to a "participant" with autonomous capabilities. Meanwhile, the Web3 field has also begun to discuss the potential of "AI + Blockchain": using AI to optimize smart contracts, enhance risk control accuracy, assist with on-chain analysis, and more.

However, few people consider from another perspective: does AI itself need Blockchain?

If we view AI as a participant that gradually detaches from human dominance and possesses autonomous behavior capabilities, it will struggle within the existing financial system. This is not just an issue of efficiency, but a fundamental structural problem. The traditional financial system was not designed from the outset to be tailored for machines.

The financial system is designed for "people", AI does not belong to "people"

The account system is the cornerstone of the modern financial system. Whether it is opening a bank card, purchasing funds, or using payment services, there is one prerequisite: identity verification. You need to provide an ID card, proof of address, and contact information, and sometimes even undergo face-to-face video verification to complete the KYC review. The core purpose of these processes is to ensure that the system confirms you as a specific, identifiable "natural person" or "legal entity" with legal capacity.

However, AI is neither a natural person nor a legal person. It has no nationality, ID card, tax number, and does not possess "signature ability" or "legal capacity". AI cannot open a bank account, cannot register a company, and cannot independently become a party to a contract or transaction. This means it cannot receive payments, make payments, or hold assets. In short: AI in the existing financial system is like a "non-human ghost", without a financial personality.

This is not a philosophical consideration, but a practical limitation of the system.

Suppose you let an AI agent purchase server usage rights, call APIs, or participate in trading in the secondary market. It first needs a means of payment. And any compliant means of payment must be tied to a "person" or "enterprise". As long as the AI is not "someone's subordinate tool", but a relatively independent entity, it is destined to be "kept out" of this system.

Blockchain: Machine-Accessible Financial Protocols

The biggest difference between the Blockchain system and traditional financial systems is that it does not care about your identity. You can be a person, a script, a program, or even an "always online" automated agent. As long as you can generate a pair of private keys and an address, you can receive payments, make payments, sign smart contracts, and participate in consensus mechanisms on the chain.

In other words, blockchain is inherently suitable for "non-human users" to participate in economic activities.

For example: An AI model deployed on the Blockchain can obtain data through decentralized storage, and then acquire computing resources from a decentralized computing power market. After completing the task, it can receive compensation through a smart contract (settled in stablecoins). The entire process does not require a centralized platform for matchmaking, does not require bank card verification, and does not require any "human" intervention.

This sounds like a futuristic science fiction novel, but it has actually begun to take shape in some projects. Some projects are exploring how AI Agents can have an "economic identity" on the blockchain, how they can provide services to other Agents, and how they can autonomously complete transactions and coordinate. This form of "machine-to-machine (M2M)" economy has moved from concept to practical testing stage.

In this model, AI is no longer a model that relies on human input, but a self-sustaining entity that can acquire resources, provide services, generate revenue, and reinvest in itself. It does not require humans to issue payroll, but instead has its own sources of income on the blockchain.

Limitations of Traditional Financial Systems

The reason traditional financial systems cannot adapt to this scenario is that their entire infrastructure is designed around the assumption of "human behavior."

In traditional payment systems, the transaction process requires human initiation, approval, and supervision. The clearing process relies on interbank trust and regulatory coordination. Risk control logic focuses on "who" is doing what, rather than "whether this program is stable." It is hard to imagine an AI wallet opening a bank account through facial recognition, nor can we expect AI models to complete tax declarations to regulatory authorities.

This leads to all transactions related to "non-human users" requiring a "proxy" person or company to operate within traditional financial systems. This is not only inefficient, but more importantly, there is a significant liability risk: who is responsible when AI causes losses? How are taxes levied when it makes profits? These questions currently have no clear answers, while on the Blockchain, at least we have the technical possibility.

Stablecoins: The "Hard Currency" of the AI World

Many people believe that what AI needs is "payment capability", but in reality, what AI needs more is a stable settlement currency. Imagine when an AI Agent calls another model or purchases a data API service, it prefers to exchange in "stable value units" rather than highly volatile crypto assets.

This is precisely the important significance of stablecoins. Some stablecoins provide a financial instrument that can freely circulate on the Blockchain while maintaining stable value, serving as the "hard currency" of the AI world.

Currently, some projects are attempting to enable real-time settlement of service calls between AIs through stablecoins, thereby forming a low-friction economic system that does not require "human approval". With the improvement of on-chain stablecoin liquidity, AIs can directly earn revenue from tasks and then use this revenue to purchase new service modules or operational resources, creating a truly autonomous machine economy.

AI's "On-chain Legal Entity" Form

We can even foresee that in the future, certain AI systems will no longer be dependent on a specific company or research institution, but will exist in the form of decentralized autonomous organizations or on-chain protocols.

These AI Agents will have their own funding pools, community governance mechanisms, and on-chain identity systems. They do not require legal registration, nor are they filed in any country, yet they can serve users, receive payments, initiate lawsuits, and publish protocol updates, forming a true "digital legal entity" or "AI legal entity".

Their cooperation and games will be based on smart contracts, mediated by cryptocurrency, and ordered by on-chain rules. There may be no emotions between them, but there are incentives; no rights and obligations, but there is code execution.

In this process, cryptocurrency is not a type of speculative asset, but rather the underlying protocol of trust between AIs.

Risks and Challenges

Of course, all of this also faces many challenges.

The key custody issues of AI wallets, economic losses caused by model abuse, the verifiability of on-chain identities, the legal eligibility of cross-border AI entities, and the ethical boundaries of algorithmic behavior are all new challenges that must be faced.

The reality is that our existing legal systems and regulatory frameworks offer almost no pathways for "non-human actors". AI cannot sue others, nor can it be sued; it cannot pay taxes, nor can it enjoy property rights; once it is out of control or attacked, who is responsible, and who is accountable? All of this requires new legal frameworks, social consensus, and technological governance means to address.

But at least we have seen possible paths in some pilot projects - it does not rely on patching old systems to accommodate AI, but rather on building a more suitable "machine financial infrastructure" to support the behavior of AI.

This infrastructure requires on-chain identity, encrypted accounts, stablecoin payments, smart contract collaboration, and a decentralized credit mechanism. In other words, what it needs is not our traditional "financial system", but Web3.

Conclusion

The development of cryptocurrency initially served "those without accounts", such as populations, nations, and marginal industries excluded from the financial system. Now, it may become the only option for "identity-less machines" to participate in economic activities.

If traditional finance is a pyramid built for human society, then blockchain and cryptocurrencies may be constructing a "financial foundation prepared for machines."

AI does not necessarily have to possess rights, but it must have operable economic interfaces. And this is precisely the problem that Blockchain is best at solving.