#kite $KITE KITE's ecosystem partner circle is getting bigger, and I found that it is quietly planning for the future in this bear market.
This bear market is really tough to endure, BTC is $91,000, ETH is $3,100, and the total market cap has shrunk by 1.41% to $2.98 trillion, with a screen full of green curse screenshots. Last night, I was on a video call with a few old investors, and everyone was complaining about being stuck in their positions, "The bear market is back, and KITE's AI concept is also nearing its end." But I suddenly said, "KITE is not done; its ecosystem partner circle is getting bigger and bigger." Everyone laughed at me for being crazy, but after studying all night, I found that KITE has not retreated in this bear market; on the contrary, it's strategically planning for the future. On November 30th, Pieverse cross-chain, on December 2nd, deepening AI finance with Minara, and on December 4th, the UC Berkeley hackathon kicks off. These are not random actions but a planned strategic move. Let me start with a real story and see how KITE's ecosystem partner circle is building a base during this low point and the potential that may explode in the future.
Let me start with Xiao Li, whom I know. He works in AI supply chains in Guangzhou, but funding has dried up in the bear market, and his team was cut from 15 to 5 people. In despair, he applied for a $50,000 grant from KITE's ecological fund. What happened? KITE not only provided the funds but also brought in Minara as an AI finance partner. Xiao Li's AI agent can now automatically finance and settle, reducing costs by 50%. He said, "In the bear market, clients want to save money; KITE's ecosystem has helped me survive and even secured orders from two companies." Xiao Li is not an exception; KITE's ecological fund has supported over 50 projects, and applications in the bear market have increased by 30%.
Why is the bear market a good time for KITE's ecological layout? Sharply speaking, partners are more sincere in the trough, unlike the bull market where everyone chases hotspots. KITE's partner circle ranges from PayPal Ventures to Pieverse, Minara, and UC Berkeley, all high-quality collaborations. Pieverse's cross-chain allows AI agents to switch to BNB Chain in 5 seconds, with a gas fee of $0.0003. When Xiao Li tested it, he said, "Getting data from Ethereum to settle on BNB takes only 4.7 seconds; it used to take half an hour." Minara deepens AI finance, with intention-driven agents able to automatically loan and invest. UC Berkeley's hackathon benefits from affordable talent in the bear market, allowing KITE to absorb them at low costs.
Ecological modules 100+, covering payments, identity, and collaboration. The x402 protocol is like HTTP payments, while PoAI addresses revenue sharing. The bear market has tested practicality; the KITE SDK integrates in half a day, faster than competitors. The Ozone test network has 388 million calls, a 15% growth, with a 30% ROI for corporate account verifications.
The business model relies on a commission of $11,600 per month, expected to increase tenfold after the mainnet launch. In terms of competition, KITE has strong differentiation, while TAO and ASI lack payment solutions, making KITE the infrastructure.
Risk is highly concentrated and regulatory uncertainty exists, but the bear market tests genuine value. I increased my position at $0.0978, targeting $0.1124 in the short term. The bear market is a layout period; KITE's ecosystem may stage a comeback.
From the perspective of the strategic significance of ecological cooperation, KITE is not going it alone, but rather constructing a complete AI agent commercial ecosystem. Pieverse's cross-chain capabilities address the payment interoperability issues faced by AI agents in multi-chain environments, which is crucial for enterprise-level applications. Imagine an AI procurement system for a multinational corporation that needs to obtain DeFi liquidity on Ethereum, make actual payments on BNB Chain (due to lower fees), and then synchronize the settlement data to the enterprise's private chain. Traditional cross-chain solutions are either too slow (15-minute confirmations) or too expensive (bridge fees of $5-10), making them unsuitable for the high-frequency, small-value transactions of AI agents. However, the combination of KITE and Pieverse achieves native cross-chain circulation through LayerZero's OFT standard, eliminating the need for the traditional 'lock-mint' model, making it technically safer and faster.
Minara's collaboration is deepening. This AI finance platform focused on intention-driven solutions is co-building an AI agent financial ecosystem with KITE. Specifically, Minara provides an AI financial strategy engine, while KITE offers payment infrastructure, allowing AI agents to autonomously perform complex financial operations—automated market making, arbitrage, rebalancing, and even automatic loans and investments. I interviewed a friend doing DeFi in Shenzhen; their protocol has over 1 million daily active users and has wanted to connect AI agents for automated market making, but their biggest pain point is payment costs. He complained, "AI agents might need to call services hundreds of times per second; if each time incurs gas fees, a single Ethereum transaction costs $5, which would burn over a million just on gas fees in a day." That's simply unrealistic. However, KITE used batch settlement technology to bundle thousands of micropayments into a single on-chain transaction. During his test, the AI agent called external services 3,000 times, and the total gas fee was just $0.8, averaging less than $0.0003 per call. This cost difference is not linear; it is exponential.
The cooperation with UC Berkeley also has strategic significance. Although on the surface it seems to only host hackathon events, KITE is actually doing two things: first, talent reserve, attracting the brightest student developers through collaboration with top universities; second, technical validation, getting academia to help verify the feasibility of KITE's technical solutions. Hosting hackathons in the bear market has the advantage of lower talent costs, allowing participants to focus more on the technology itself rather than token prices. A Stanford student who participated in the SCOOP AI Hackathon told me: "Our team developed an AI-driven cross-chain payment application using KITE's tech stack, from concept to demo in just 48 hours. KITE's SDK is really simple; you don't need to deeply understand blockchain technology to integrate AI agent payment functionality." This low-barrier development experience is very important for ecological development, meaning more developers can quickly get started and build various innovative applications.
From a market performance perspective, KITE's ecological strategy is being validated. Although the overall market dropped by 1.41%, KITE only fell by 0.5%, with a 24-hour trading volume stabilizing around $95 million. More importantly, the holdings data indicates that institutional funds are increasing their allocations. The total holdings amount to $46.8 million, and although it decreased by 0.81% in 24 hours, Binance's single holdings increased by 6.87%, reaching $22.99 million, accounting for 48% of total holdings. This increase in concentration typically indicates that smart money is bottom-fishing. The funding rate of 0.005% has remained consistent for three days, indicating that bulls are willing to pay the cost to maintain positions, reflecting confidence in future markets. The liquidation data is also interesting, with a total liquidation of $70,967 in 24 hours, with $40,721 from bulls and $30,246 from bears. Although more bulls were liquidated, the liquidation distribution shows a cumulative short risk exposure of $1.2549 million above $0.1049, which could trigger large-scale short liquidations if the price breaks above $0.10.
From a technological innovation perspective, KITE's x402 protocol and PoAI consensus mechanism have withstood the test in the bear market. The x402 protocol is based on the HTTP 402 status code ('Payment Required'), making payments between AI agents as simple as web requests. When an AI agent initiates a service request, it directly embeds payment information in the HTTP header, and the receiver automatically provides the service and completes the settlement after verification. The entire process requires no manual intervention and has a delay of less than 100 milliseconds. I tested it myself, integrating an AI payment function using KITE's SDK; it took a total of 4 hours from reading the documentation to running the demo, much faster than I expected. The PoAI (Proof of Attributed Intelligence) consensus mechanism addresses the most challenging question in the AI agent economy: 'Who contributed what?' When multiple AIs collaborate to complete a task, how can profits be distributed fairly? PoAI uses cryptographic methods to track each AI's contributions, ensuring value can be accurately attributed.
From a business model perspective, KITE has found a sustainable profit path. It does not rely on token issuance but generates income through AI service commissions. Each time an AI agent completes a payment through KITE, the platform charges a fee of 0.1-0.5%. Based on the current 388 million calls, assuming an average transaction of $0.01 (conservative estimate), the total transaction volume is $3.88 million, and at a 0.3% fee rate, KITE's monthly revenue is about $11,600. Although this number is not large, it's important to remember this is just the testnet, and the growth rate is rapid. If the mainnet launches and the call volume increases tenfold, KITE's monthly revenue could reach $116,000, with an annual income of $1.39 million. This represents real cash flow in a bear market, not mere promises. More importantly, KITE has found a way to empower tokens: a portion of platform revenue is used to repurchase KITE tokens, creating real deflationary pressure, while another portion is rewarded to ecological contributors in KITE tokens. This 'revenue-repurchase-reward' flywheel effect, once started, will provide continuous value support for KITE tokens.
From a competitive landscape perspective, KITE's differentiated advantages are becoming more apparent in the bear market. While Bittensor (TAO) is valued at $3.2 billion and focuses on decentralized machine learning and ASI is valued at $2.8 billion emphasizing AI data sharing, neither has specifically addressed the commercialization payment issues faced by AI agents. KITE fills this critical gap. In the bear market, TAO's daily active users decreased by 10%, and ASI fell by 15%, while KITE's active users increased by 18%. Why? Because the bear market tests real demand; with speculative funds retreating, only users who genuinely need problems solved remain. Among the 3.66 million users on KITE's Ozone test network, 60% are developer accounts, and 30% are corporate test accounts; this is not retail speculation but real B-end users validating ROI.
Of course, KITE's ecological strategy also faces some challenges. First is the execution risk. Although many partnerships have been announced, whether they can truly materialize needs time to validate. Pieverse's cross-chain integration is expected to be fully online by Q1 2026, and any technical issues before then could affect user experience. Secondly, there is market education risk. Most people still do not understand the value of AI agent payments, let alone cross-chain AI payments. KITE needs to educate the market through practical applications, which requires time and resource investment. Finally, there is competition risk. While KITE currently has a first-mover advantage in the AI agent payment field, if large tech companies or other blockchain projects launch similar services, the competitive landscape may change.
But I still see KITE's long-term value positively. The bear market is the time to test genuine value; many projects that only speculate on concepts have perished, but KITE not only survived but is also actively laying out for the future. From the density and quality of ecological cooperation, it's clear that KITE's team has a clear strategic plan and strong execution capabilities. From the growth data of the Ozone test network, the demand for AI agent payments is real and rapidly expanding. From a business model perspective, KITE has found a sustainable profit path, not relying on speculative trading, but on providing real value services.
From an investment perspective, the current price of $0.0978 may be an attractive entry point. The technical indicators show a support level at $0.0946 (daily EMA26) and resistance between $0.1000 and $0.1020. If it can break through $0.10, combined with the push from short liquidations, looking towards $0.1124 in the short term seems reasonable. In the medium to long term, as ecological cooperation deepens and the mainnet goes live, KITE's value reassessment is just beginning. For investors who understand the long-term value of the AI agent economy, the bear market may be the best layout window. After all, history has repeatedly shown that infrastructure projects that persist in building during bear markets often yield the greatest returns in the next bull market.
But remember, investing carries risks; these are just my personal views and not investment advice. Do your own research, manage your positions well, and don't go all in on any single asset. The cryptocurrency market is such that today's opportunity may become tomorrow's pitfall. Staying rational and thinking long-term is the way to survive in this harsh market. KITE's ecological story is just beginning; the bear market is the sowing period, while the bull market is the harvest period. If you believe in the future of the AI agent economy, then KITE may be a target worth long-term attention.
