The majority of blockchains are human friendly by pushing buttons.
KITE is evidently constructed in a different direction.
The most striking thing about KITE is that it is based on the premise that software agents will not be tools but will act as economic actors. Accept that premise and the design space is transformed. Payments have ceased being a sporadic activity. They are contextual, autonomous and continuous.
That is where the interest of KITE in agentic payments comes in. The chain is not only facilitating transactions. It is empowering agents in order to conduct business with identity, limits and responsibility.
It is a subtle difference, yet that. One that is capable of paying without identity is a risk. A verifiable identity agent with scoped permissions is a part of infrastructure.
The identity model is a three-layer is a great indication of intent. The separation of users, agents and sessions recognizes a fact that most chains fail to consider: autonomy has boundaries.
Not all the actions have to have the complete authority.
KITE appears to place emphasis on control and safety, rather than on the raw flexibility, by design.
It is also deliberate and not lazy to be EVM-compatible. It enables KITE to interface with existing tooling and redesign the method of initiating and controlling transactions. It is difficult to strike a balance between compatibility and specialization.
KITE does not seem to be pursuing the current DeFi consumers. It sounds as though it is planning almost instantly to come to a world where AI agents can arrange, compensate, and bargain on-chain.
The infrastructure constructed in that world will not be exciting today.
YES
But when such a shift occurs, then it will already be there.
This type of project is not about short term storytelling but rather about whether the assumptions made thereof happen to be correct. KITE is making a clear bet. And it’s a serious one.
