The Know Your Agent (KYA) system, which assigns identities to agents and regulates their behavior, is receiving increasing attention.

Written by: Tiger Research

Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

The era of AI agents is accelerating, while concerns about uncontrolled creation and behavior of agents are also increasing. The Know Your Agent (KYA) system, which assigns identities to agents and regulates their behavior, is receiving increasing attention. Why is KYA identity infrastructure needed? Which companies are building it?

Summary

• AI agents have entered an era of autonomously executing contracts, payments, and transactions, but there are currently no shared standards to verify "who this agent is." In Agent-to-Agent (A2A) scenarios, KYA is of more interest than KYC.
• KYA is not required in all scenarios. Within centralized platforms (Google, OpenAI, Coinbase), existing KYC is sufficient. The real importance of KYA is in scenarios where independently deployed autonomous agents engage with DEX, A2A payments, and merchant payments.
• The KYA standard race has begun:
• ERC-8004: Issuing AgentID on top of NFT, building identity, reputation, and verification systems on-chain
• Visa TAP: Visa issues identity credentials for agents, verified through TAP's triple signature (legitimacy, delegator, payment method)
• Trulioo: Adopts SSL CA model, with DPA issuing DAP
• Sumsub: Adding KYA system on top of its own compliance system

Regulations have started to take action at the national level. The EU’s AI Act requires high-risk AI systems to include operator identity in their behavior logs. The U.S. NIST lists agent identity management as a priority standard area. Singapore has released the world’s first national framework for AI governance for agents. Just as the 2019 FATF Travel Rule determined which cryptocurrency exchanges could survive, having KYA infrastructure will determine who can enter the next round of the market.

Why is KYA emerging now?

KYC: The Layer Reshaping Finance

• Before 1989, there was no unified identity standard in global finance. This gap led to difficulties in tracking drug money and illegal funds.
• After the establishment of FATF in 1989, KYC became a mandatory requirement in the financial sector, blocking illegal funds right at the entry point.

Without agent identity, the system will regress

• AI agents execute contracts, payments, and transactions without human involvement, but currently cannot verify "who they are."
• In an A2A environment, accountability becomes blurred, dispute risk increases, and users are exposed to fraudulent patterns like money laundering.

The Role and Response of KYA (Know Your Agent)

• KYA (Know Your Agent) is a trust layer that verifies the source, authorization, and accountability of agents in advance.
• Unverified agents bring three major risks: unauthorized transactions, fraud, and gaps in accountability.

The Necessity of KYA

KYA is needed at every level

• Within centralized platforms, user KYC + platform accountability are sufficient. However, in interoperable scenarios outside of the platform, KYA becomes crucial to verify the specific actions and security of agents.
• Within a country (inside the platform), an ID card (KYC) is sufficient for free movement. But once crossing borders (outside the platform), the environment changes, requiring entry reviews of purpose and trust (KYA).

Market Participants

ERC-8004: NFT-Based Agent Identity

• ERC-8004 adds an identity layer on top of ERC-721, minting an NFT for each agent as a unique ID.
• It also adds three on-chain registries (Identity, Reputation, Validation), serving as identity, reputation board, and validation record respectively.

Two markets built on Ethereum standards, a third is coming

• ERC-20 (Token issuance standard): Before standardization, each token required brand new code. After ERC-20, most major assets are issued on it.
• ERC-721 (NFT standard): CryptoPunks, BAYC, ENS built the NFT market itself on it. With the acceleration of blockchain integration in the agent era.
• ERC-8004 will play the same standard role for agents (Agents).

Visa TAP: Certification on the Visa Track

Visa issues identity credentials (Agent Intent) to agents, similar to an identity card. Without keys, transactions cannot occur. Keys are only issued after Visa pre-approval. Each transaction is signed and submitted to the merchant.

The merchant receives three signatures, not one: Visa approval, delegator, payment method, all confirmed at once.

Visa: The Strategy of Pulling Every Transaction into the Visa Network

• Just as Visa previously captured payment tracks, it is now encapsulating the agent era.
• Through Visa Intelligent Commerce (VIC), Visa launches a solution that bundles KYA with payments.
• If agent payments still use card tracks, and this solution package becomes the default option, then even through the transition, Visa’s market share can remain stable.

Trulioo: Expanding KYC Era Verification Infrastructure

• Trulioo is a compliance operator on the global KYC·KYB track and is expanding its verification stack to KYA.
• DPA plays the role of SSL-CA. Unlike SSL (only domain name), DPA verifies developer KYB and user KYC, then issues DAP.
• Banks and fintechs legally require human and business identities. As agents enter the financial sector, Trulioo's KYC·KYB position will be further solidified.

DAP, the Agent's Digital Passport, Refreshes with Every Transaction

• DAP is the agent's digital passport. DPA verifies developers (KYB) and users (KYC), packaging both into a token granted to the agent.
• Unlike a paper passport, it is a living token that refreshes and is re-validated with each transaction. Once delegation is revoked or anomalies detected, DAP is immediately invalidated.
• KYA is not a one-time verification. Trust must be re-confirmed with every transaction.

Sumsub (AI Agent Verification): Detecting Agent Anomalies

• Sumsub's approach is to re-validate the currently used human identity whenever an agent attempts an anomalous transaction.
• It utilizes a verification system in compliance business since 2015 to more accurately detect agent anomalies.

Operators equipped with technology to address new threats in the AI era

• Other KYA participants focus on one-time pre-transaction identity verification. Sumsub focuses on real-time verification after issuance.
• As agent permissions expand, anomaly detection becomes crucial; with fraud scaling with technology, Sumsub’s real-time verification stack is gaining attention.

Proactively Layout Regulations, Leading the Entrance Rules

The gap caused by the FATF Travel Rule may replay in KYA

After the 2019 FATF Travel Rule, VASPs differentiated in whether they could bear the costs of KYC·AML infrastructure. Peers like CryptoBridge and Deribit who couldn’t bear it either closed or migrated to regions with lighter regulations.

The EU, Singapore, and the U.S. are already competing for leadership. KYA will become the core layer of the agent era.

KYA differentiates by market segment rather than a single winner

The real variable in the standard competition is not technology but combination. Mainstream players have already entered the cooperation - combination phase. In the future, who partners with which merchants, payment networks, and KYC customer bases will determine the leaders in each market segment.

There will not be a single winner in the market; it will differentiate by market segments.