The cryptocurrency blockchain empowers robots for autonomous interaction, opening up a new economic model.
Written by: Schizoxbt, Castle Labs
Translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow
This week, we skip the market overview update and instead introduce you to a field we believe will become one of the hot topics of the year: robotics.
Introduction
In the early 2000s, a scholar named Ray Kurzweil made an interesting observation. He found that the pace of technological advancement was accelerating, with each new invention bringing exponential returns over time. For example, the discovery of fire led to metallurgy, which drove the development of machines, which in turn facilitated the birth of computers, and computers propelled the advancement of more sophisticated chip technology and artificial intelligence, and so on.
The creation of new technologies accelerates along this path, forming a feedback loop that allows humanity to continuously explore new domains. We gain better tools that speed up research, and faster research enables us to produce better tools, thus accelerating the next cycle.
This brings us to where we are today.
In a short span of time, we seem to have jumped into a future: artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing, self-driving cars are becoming a reality, cryptocurrencies are widely circulating as internet money, and now, robotics is also beginning to emerge.
The new era driven by robots is expected to bring about a flourishing workforce, with humanoid robots capable of performing various general labor tasks. Robots do not need breaks, do not require vacations, and are more cost-effective than humans.
Businesses are gradually realizing that they can accomplish these tasks with a whole warehouse full of robots, and the cost of these robots is far lower than human labor. This is a significant breakthrough for enterprises.
Where does cryptocurrency fit into all of this? Cryptocurrency can combine with robotics on three different levels: the financial layer, the coordination layer, and the infrastructure layer. The following sections will delve into the robotics tech stack and highlight some interesting projects in the crypto x robotics space.
Three Levels of the Robotics Tech Stack
Here’s how cryptocurrency integrates into the robotics tech stack:
- ### Financial Layer
Cryptocurrency introduces a new financial track for robots, enabling them to earn and make payments in a trustless and programmatic manner.
Robots can have crypto wallets, allowing them to receive and send micro-payments that traditional payment methods cannot achieve. This is particularly important in the era of billions of robots interacting autonomously, as blockchain technology can support this level of interaction.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) can also raise funds through tokenization, partially funding the ownership of robots or robot fleets, opening up new investment/ownership avenues for investors.
- ### Coordination Layer
The key to efficiently operating a network of robots lies in coordination. There needs to be a way to allocate tasks, verify work, align incentives, and more.
Smart contracts can serve as the coordination logic, with all work allocations, payments, and confirmations executed and verified on the blockchain.
Governance mechanisms can also be used for fleet upgrades, deployment areas, pricing, etc., completed by voting from token holders or through automated arbitration.
- ### Infrastructure Layer
Robots need a shared infrastructure to support their operation, including positioning systems, maps, communication networks, identity systems, and computing power. If robots are to play a significant role in society, they need maps to navigate a human-designed world, be able to determine their location at any time, and understand how to communicate or recognize other robots. Cryptocurrency provides an open/decentralized way to achieve these functions, rather than relying on traditional infrastructures like Google Cloud or AWS.
Robots need a method to accurately locate themselves, and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) technology can provide centimeter-level positioning data via GPS. This data is crucial for autonomous movement and navigation.
To prove identity, each robot can have a crypto wallet to demonstrate its authenticity, sign telemetry data, or verify work proofs, establishing credibility on-chain.
Now that we have introduced how cryptocurrency combines with robotics, let’s look at how these technologies operate in practice and highlight some noteworthy crypto x robotics projects.
peaq - @peaq
Many may have heard of peaq, but in the crypto space, it is currently the largest robot-related token by market cap, making it hard not to mention them.
peaq, built as an L1 pillar of the machine economy, treats machines, robots, and devices as first-class citizens. This means any type of machine (including land, air, sea, or space) can build applications for it.
Machines want to build applications on peaq because these applications can transform them into autonomous economies, enabling them to earn money, coordinate, and self-upgrade, while developers can access the entire machine economy.
As a result, these machines become native participants on-chain. peaq has already onboarded over 3 million machines, and this number continues to grow.
In the past few months, peaq has announced the following achievements:
Robotics SDK: Enables developers to more easily onboard machines to the chain and grants robots autonomous identities, allowing them to pay, receive payments, and verify data.
The first tokenized robot farm: Providing vegetables for local communities.
The first robot to obtain self-sovereign identity.
Additionally, peaq offers various plug-and-play modules, allowing teams to avoid rebuilding core infrastructure. This is a key point, as it transforms peaq into a Robotics Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider. This is a huge breakthrough for developers, who can skip infrastructure setup and directly launch products.
As peaq positions itself as the financial, coordination, and identity layer for machines, it has great potential to become a leader in this field.
These layers are essential components of the crypto x robotics intersection, bringing financial economies to all machines, enabling them to scale with demand without having to build these systems from scratch. If robots develop as predicted, there will be millions of autonomous robots buying, selling, and interacting on a large scale.
Currently, the market cap of $PEAQ is approximately $125 million, with a price of about $0.09. As more projects utilize peaq's SDK and leverage its machine economy, peaq is expected to further drive the development of the crypto x robotics space.
Auki - @AukiNetwork
Robots need to be able to interact with and navigate the human-created world, which involves a significant amount of spatial processing capability. They need to be able to navigate corners, cross sidewalks, know when to use crosswalks, and many other things we typically do not consider.
Auki has created a technology called posemesh, which they describe as “a decentralized machine perception network and collaborative spatial computing protocol designed to enable digital devices to securely and privately exchange spatial data and computing power, thereby forming a shared understanding of the physical world.”
Ideally, this technology can help transform the physical world into a searchable, browsable, and navigable place, supporting the spatial awareness capabilities of robots. Auki is building a decentralized nervous system for machines.
Through posemesh, devices can request and contribute sensor data, computing power, storage, and various other services. With a diverse range of applications, layers, and datasets that can be contributed, Auki enables different machine profiles to both contribute value to the network and extract value from it.
Currently, the market cap of $AUKI is approximately $78 million, with a price of about $0.02. Auki recently mentioned exclusive partnership negotiations with one of China’s largest robotics companies and may integrate its AR navigation technology into airlines. These are all important catalysts for future growth!
Geodnet - @geodnet_
We mentioned RTK earlier in this report, but let’s delve into it in more detail: RTK stands for Real-Time Kinematic, a high-precision technology built on conventional GPS/GNSS. It can achieve centimeter-level positioning accuracy, which is essential infrastructure for robots, drones, autonomous vehicles, and spatial intelligent networks.
This infrastructure enables these machines to reliably navigate, map, and coordinate in the physical world. Without RTK, their positioning errors could reach several meters, making autonomous movement, precise tasks, and on-chain data verification nearly impossible.
Typically, RTK requires a GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) base station and a rover.
The rover is a robot or drone that receives GNSS signals, estimates its position, and enhances the estimation accuracy to centimeter-level in real-time using correction data provided by nearby base stations.
Geodnet is a decentralized RTK network that incentivizes base station operators through its native token. It is touted as the largest RTK correction service provider and has even gained significant attention in mainstream GNSS circles.
Currently, the market cap of $GEOD is approximately $42 million, with a price of about $0.13. A few days ago, they announced pre-order information for a handheld GNSS RTK receiver, which could serve as a catalyst for its development.
CodecFlow - @codecopenflow
CodecFlow is a Solana-based project aimed at becoming the execution layer for robots and AI agents. Essentially, their goal is to give AI agents a sense of presence and agency, rather than just the ability to think or communicate. This will open up many possibilities, as current AI agents lack the capability to perform physical tasks at scale in the real world.
To achieve this, CodecFlow utilizes a Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model.
These models allow agents to:
Capture environmental information through cameras or screens;
Use AI models to understand dynamics in the environment;
Take action through software or physical models.
CodecFlow's tech stack consists of two core components: Fabric and Operator Kit (OPTR).
Fabric: Similar to a smart router for computing power, it serves as a unified orchestration layer that intelligently schedules workloads between cloud service providers and routes workloads to the cheapest GPU or computing resources. This allows developers to allocate tasks for robotic agents to the lowest-cost cloud services without being locked into expensive options.
Operator Kit: A developer toolkit for actually programming these agents. This enables developers to create agents that can perceive, make decisions, and act reliably, standardizing workflows and enhancing the robustness and scalability of the agents.
Currently, the market cap of $CODEC is approximately $13 million, with a price of about $0.018. With the release of the Operator Toolkit in August and integration with peaq's MachineDex, CodecFlow has further elevated its position in the robotics narrative.
Silencio - @silencionetwork
Sound is a sensory input that can provide a wealth of environmental information, such as car horns, sirens, or even a baby crying.
For humans, understanding sounds in daily life requires years of learning and accumulation, and imparting this ability to robots is not easy. For example, automated delivery robots need to be able to recognize auditory cues like emergency sirens.
Silencio is building this auditory layer, allowing anyone with a phone or sensor to become a node in its network. If enough sound data can be collected, these robots will gain the necessary environmental perception and audio recognition capabilities.
Silencio has covered over 180 countries, with daily active nodes accumulating over 1,300 years of sound data, and more than 1 million contributors uploading data to the network.
Currently, the market cap of $SLC is approximately $6 million, with a price of about $0.0002. In a keynote speech in September, Silencio showcased the importance of sound data for the future of robots. If they can continue to expand this competitive barrier, the potential for future development is immense.
Is This the End or the Beginning?
While this may be the conclusion of this report, the era of robotics is far from over, nor is it the end of the crypto x robotics field. This remains an emerging area, and over time, the world will continue to move towards these industries.
Currently, the market cap of robotics-related stocks is approximately $112 billion, while the market cap of the crypto x robotics field is about $404 million. This indicates that we have ample room for growth in this area.
There are many more projects to discuss regarding robotics technology and its potential, and many ways to interpret it. This is a broad topic that is rapidly expanding every day, and as Kurzweil pointed out, as we move into the future, it is likely to grow exponentially.
Soon, we may become accustomed to having humanoid robots assist with daily household chores, just as we have become accustomed to seeing self-driving cars on the roads.
The future will only become more wonderful.
As the industry continues to evolve, this article is not a complete summary of the sector. If we have missed any projects or you have information about other projects worth our attention, please let us know.
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