The transition to an AI agent-driven economy hinges on first resolving the issue of identity verification, experts said.
Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands, attended "Bitcoin Seoul 2026," hosted by Seoul Economic Daily and Decenter on the 4th, and said, "We are moving toward an era of autonomous, large-scale transactions between AI agents." Still, he noted that users actually leveraging blockchain technology amount to only one-twentieth of the 800 million cryptocurrency holders.
In this regard, experts pointed out that the identity verification problem is becoming an obstacle in the proliferation of the AI agent economic model. When payments are made in daily life, such as at convenience stores and online shopping malls, it is not simply bank account information that is transmitted, but identity information such as the payer's name and address that is indirectly provided. However, due to anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements, there are clear limits to AI agents independently carrying out payments.
Henry Lee, chief product officer (CPO) of Kite AI, stressed, "Payment and identity are closely related issues," adding, "If agents acquire payment capabilities, their status can be elevated beyond mere advisors to agents that execute the user's will."
He predicted that the shift from a mobile-centered era to an agent-centered era is only a matter of time. Lee said, "The consensus has been that the past five years were the mobile-first internet era. That means people used more than 10 different applications to carry out daily life, such as buying goods, listening to music, and using social media." He added, "The next five years will be an agent-centered economy," and "interactions between humans and machines will be consolidated into two or three apps."
