Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )

Author｜Azuma ( @azuma_eth )

The narrative of AI development is quickly shifting from "tool-type intelligence" to "autonomous intelligence." Two years ago, we were amazed by how LLMs like ChatGPT could converse fluently; now, agents represented by "lobster" OpenClaw can independently perform relatively complex real-world tasks to some extent.

The outline of the future world has gradually become clear—the role of AI in economic activities will shift from "human assistants" to "autonomous participants." In the near future, humans will become accustomed to scenarios where assistant-type agents can complete daily tasks like booking flights and ordering food; research-type agents can proactively search for opportunities in financial markets; and commercial agents can automatically compare quotes from global suppliers and fulfill orders… and their counterpart will also be another batch of agents.

However, as AI agents gradually acquire economic behavior capabilities, a new question arises—how should the economic order between AI agents be established?

"AI can execute tasks, but it lacks payment capability, identity systems, and credit systems. Without these infrastructures, the autonomous economy of AI is hard to truly operate."

The above assertion comes from a recent encounter by Odaily Planet Daily with an AI startup, FinAI. The core team of this company mainly comes from leading internet companies and is currently actively embracing Web3 technology stacks such as x402 and ERC-8004, attempting to solve the above "order" problem based on three dimensions: payment, identity, and credit.

FinAI founder Rechard revealed that FinAI is currently in the seed funding stage and has already secured investment commitments from several top blockchain firms in the industry.

Pioneers of Order in the Agent Economy Era

To sum it up in one sentence, what FinAI aims to do is—to build a financial infrastructure for AI agents, providing the underlying order for the future Agent-to-Agent economy.

In FinAI's vision, the AI agent economy requires three core foundational capabilities: payment capability, identity systems, and credit systems.

• First is payment capability. Currently, most AI agents do not have independent payment capabilities; they can only perform tasks but cannot complete real transactions. For example, an AI agent can help users search for flights, but final payment still needs to be done manually. FinAI hopes to achieve microsecond-level payment settlement between agents based on the x402 protocol, allowing service calls between agents to form a complete economic loop.
• Second is the identity system. FinAI, while introducing the ERC-8004 protocol, also proposes a KYA (Know Your Agent) concept, which is comparable to KYC, to establish a verifiable identity system for AI agents. Unlike KYC in traditional finance, KYA focuses on identity verification and behavioral boundaries of agents, enabling AI agents to possess compliant and secure identity attributes when executing tasks.
• The third is the credit system. FinAI believes that future large-scale transactions between agents will inevitably rely on a credit system. Historical transaction data, task execution quality, refund records, and other information can all serve as important bases for credit assessment. This credit system will become the foundational trust for future AI economic activities.

Rechard further stated that FinAI hopes to integrate these three foundational capabilities into a package and open them up in the form of APIs/Skills, allowing agents to call them freely, thus enabling every agent to easily acquire payment, identity, and credit capabilities, promoting the gradual formation of the agent trading market.

As for the target customers and revenue model, Rechard revealed that FinAI mainly targets two types of groups. One type is agent application developers in the Web2 world, who need to subscribe to FinAI's services through APIs, which will also be the main source of revenue for FinAI; the other type is on-chain users in the Web3 ecosystem. FinAI is exploring diverse financial application scenarios with mainstream public chains, providing services for Web3 users through Agent Skills. FinAI will consider charging a certain percentage of transaction revenue from task transactions between agents in the future, but Rechard revealed that FinAI aims to incubate a mature agent trading market and is keen to see agents earn independently, without planning to rely on C-end profits, so transaction commission rates are expected to be very low and user-friendly.

By 2026, FinAI has completed its first autonomous payment order and is expected to achieve formal service revenue within the first quarter. Rechard stated: "What FinAI is doing is not a money-burning business, so positive profitability is expected to be achieved within the year."

Embracing Web3 is the Trend of the Times

FinAI has actively embraced protocols and standards such as x402 and ERC-8004 that originated in the Web3 world within its technology stack and is planning to integrate the latest ERC-8138 protocol launched by the Ethereum Foundation as a complement to its services. In Rechard's view, this is not merely a technical choice but a result driven by real demands.

Readers familiar with "lobster" may have noticed recent safety controversies arising from it, such as accidental data deletion or misdirected emails. Assuming AI agents can immediately access your financial accounts, the risks would become even harder to control—this is also why many companies are currently unwilling to directly open credit cards or bank accounts to agents.

Rechard pointed out that what agents need is a new payment and identity system, rather than directly inheriting human financial accounts. The on-chain stablecoin payment and settlement system is the best option available in the current market.

Cost and efficiency advantages are the core elements here. In traditional cross-border payment systems, fund settlement usually requires T+3 to T+5 days, with high costs and complex processes, making this path incompatible with the Agent economy's significant micro-payment demands; whereas the payment and settlement system based on stablecoins can complete transactions within seconds and significantly reduce costs. FinAI revealed that its system can currently achieve real-time payments between $0.01 to $1000, with settlement completed within 2 to 3 seconds, and on-chain settlement costs about 1/300 of traditional systems.

Rechard noted that the proportion of stablecoins in global payments is continuously increasing, and once funds move from traditional banking systems into the stablecoin system, they often do not flow back. This trend is forcing traditional institutions to proactively embrace on-chain finance.

However, Rechard also mentioned that clients in traditional markets still have concerns regarding compliance and safety when accessing on-chain financial systems, but this is precisely where FinAI's current advantages lie. On one hand, FinAI possesses full-stack technical and engineering capabilities and related patents in identity gateways, payment systems, and quantum encryption wallets, which can create a digital bank-level security environment for economic activities between agents; on the other hand, based on the KYA identity and credit system, FinAI can further guarantee the compliance and security of agent economic activities in transaction architecture design.

First-Mover Advantage Means Everything

FinAI was initially conceived in August 2025. Although the development time is not long, the progress has been remarkably efficient. In November 2025, FinAI was preliminarily launched; on January 13, 2026, it completed the integration with the Base chain; on February 5, it completed the MCP of the agent; on March 6, it completed the PoC of the DID and credit system…

Rechard mentioned that the biggest competitive advantage today, in the early stages of agent economic activities, lies in who can first run a complete system. There do exist some single-point solutions in the market, such as projects focusing on payment, identity, or credit scoring, but there are still relatively few infrastructures that truly integrate all three.

Once the agent economy begins to accelerate its explosion in the future, when AI agents require payment capability, identity verification, or credit systems, if FinAI is the first platform to complete the full loop, then agents will prioritize calling its services.

Rechard also mentioned a secret—to provide agent-friendly services. Specifically, in the future, the entity selecting services will be the agent, and the behavior logic of agents differs from humans; they will automatically seek the most cost-effective and easily accessible services. Therefore, FinAI emphasizes "agent-friendly" in system design, optimizing its code interfaces and API structures to make it easier for agents to integrate and call.

From historical experience, every market paradigm evolution requires new infrastructures and orders. The e-commerce era gave rise to third-party payments, the mobile internet led to digital wallets, and the rise of AI agents may give rise to a new economic system. FinAI's goal is to act as a pioneer in attempting to lead the construction of order under the new system.

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