Remember 2021 when Solana felt like the chain that actually worked while everyone else choked on gas fees? KITE gives me that same energy, except this time it's laser-focused on AI agents instead of degens minting jpegs.
Don't get me wrong—the team isn't trying to be the fastest general-purpose L1. They're deliberately narrow: create the cheapest, most reliable settlement layer specifically for autonomous AIs to transact among themselves. That's a much smarter wedge than trying to compete with Ethereum head-on.
The magic is in the details most people skip. Their PoAI (Proof-of-Artificial-Intelligence) consensus idea sounds fancy but basically lets AI inputs help optimize network decisions. Combine that with native stablecoin rails, agent passports (DID-based identities with budget caps and permissions), and the upcoming x402 settlement protocol—and you suddenly have a system where one AI can hire another for a task, pay on delivery, get a refund if it sucks, and split revenue automatically. All verifiable, all on-chain, no middleman.
At ~$0.09 with 1.8B circulating out of 10B max, the fully diluted valuation still feels reasonable for something claiming to be the "first AI payment blockchain." Volume tends to cluster around Korean exchanges and Binance, which tells you where the smart money is rotating these days.
Big picture: every major AI lab is racing toward agent swarms. OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI—they all talk about multi-agent systems. But none of them have a native decentralized payment & identity layer. That's the gap Kite is trying to own.
Risks? Execution, competition from modular stacks, regulatory headwinds around AI money flows. But the upside? If they nail this, KITE becomes the TCP/IP of agent money. Not sexy, but foundational.
Early infrastructure plays rarely feel exciting in the moment. That's why they tend to pay the best when the wave finally hits. Watching this one closely. You should too.
