To be honest, when I first heard terms like AI agents and blockchain delegation, I felt overwhelmed. People in the circle always simplify these concepts—just hand over the permissions, and the system will take care of everything for you, so convenient! But after struggling for a while, I realized it’s not that straightforward. Permissions are hard to fully take back once given away, and when issues arise, it leads to mutual blame. Especially when the other party is not a human but an AI that can learn and make decisions, things get even more complicated.
So when I noticed Kite AI, my first impression was: finally, someone isn’t treating this as a gimmick but is seriously managing it as a risk.
How do you see most on-chain projects handle delegation? Basically, it's a one-time authorization; once it's used, you manually revoke it. This method works for interactions between people or simple smart contracts, but AI agents are different. They operate continuously, adjusting their behavior based on new information and even taking actions that developers may not have anticipated.
Kite's approach is much smarter: it divides identity into three layers—user, agent, and session. The user holds the root permission, the agent only gets limited permissions, and the session is the most restricted, being one-time and temporary. It's like not giving the house key directly to the nanny, but instead giving her a time-limited access card that can only open specific doors and expires at a set time. Even if something goes wrong with the agent layer, it won't wipe out all your belongings at once.
What reassures me the most is its approach to payments. Many projects wish they could make one-click payments their core selling point, but Kite treats payments with particular weight and caution. It does not allow the agent itself to have permanent payment permissions; instead, it requires each payment to be tied to a specific session. This adds an extra layer of confirmation, which might be a bit slower, but it can prevent a lot of potential losses. In this circle that generally pursues extreme speed, I find it quite rare to intentionally add this friction for the sake of security.
This design also changes our understanding of efficiency. Traditional finance pursues speed and low cost because people are impatient, and transaction fees are visible. But AI agents are not in a hurry; they care more about predictability and certainty. A system with clear constraints is often faster and more reliable for agents than pure speed. Kite is willing to sacrifice some flexibility for higher execution confidence. This may be a bit uncomfortable for developers used to infinite combinations, but it is most suitable for systems that genuinely need long-term unattended operation.
Kite's idea is actually a reflection on many past blockchain incidents. Many projects fail not because of insufficient innovation but because they place too much faith in technology to abstract trust infinitely. The more complex the system, the greater the cost of losing control over permissions. Kite does not fantasize about solving all coordination issues solely through encryption; instead, it embeds restrictions directly at the identity layer, transforming governance from post-fact remedial measures to proactive prevention.
Currently, discussions around Kite reflect this shift. People are not focusing on short-term speculation or profits, but on controlling models and agent security. This indicates that it mainly attracts developers who are serious about building reliable systems rather than speculators. The phased rollout of the $KITE token also embodies this steady approach: practical value comes before speculation.
Of course, the delegation issue will never be completely resolved. AI agents will continue to exhibit unexpected behaviors, and regulatory frameworks are still human-centered, with unclear accountability. Kite does not intend to solve all contradictions once and for all, but it at least candidly faces these challenges. In an industry that often confuses confidence with clarity, this restraint stands out.
Whether Kite ultimately becomes mainstream infrastructure or just influences industry thinking, it reminds everyone: giving machines power is easy; truly controlling them is the real challenge.
