The digital world is undergoing a transition from a human-centered internet to one inhabited by AI agents. The main drive behind the change is the development of the “agentic economy” and the resulting Kite Network, a specially developed Layer-1 blockchain, whose aim is to supply the finance and identity infrastructure for the “agentic economy.”
More recent developments in 2025 have reinforced Kite's position with notable partnerships and an ensuing rapid expansion of its tech ecosystem.
Recent Strategic Partnerships
In
Kite Network has centered its 2025 partnership efforts on connecting Web2 commerce with Web3 infrastructure to ensure its AI agents are able to interact on both conventional platforms and decentralized platforms.
1. The PayPal & General Catalyst Partnership
In September of 2025, Kite raised $18 million in Series A funding, taking the total capital to $33 million. Most importantly, this round was led by co-investors PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst.
Shopify Integration: This integration combines the agent payment infrastructure of Kite with the world of global e-commerce. Shopify merchants are now able to participate in the Kite Agent App Store, which means that the user storefronts of the merchants will be accessible to AI-based purchasing agents.
Institutional Support: The list of investors also includes Samsung Next, Coinbase Ventures, Animoca Brands, as well as Hashed, which are a mix of those who identify as crypto natives along with those who are more focused on consumer tech.
2. Infrastructure & Interoperability
In order to avoid being chain-siloed, Kite's strategy has been focused on cross-chain connectivity:
Avalanche & LayerZero: In November 2025, Kite partnered with Avalanche via LayerZero. This enables the bridging of assets from Ethereum or BSC via Stargate Finance, besides facilitating "Agent Passports" that conserve identity on various blockchains.
OKX Wallet: A partnership with OKX Wallet was launched for easy crypto payments using AI, to make it easy for consumers to access the "agentic" web.
3. Specialists Service Partners
GAIB: A partnership with GAIB was established to provide a decentralized marketplace for GPU power and open data, providing the agents with the necessary raw computational power to operate.
Brevis collaborated with Brevis to improve the transparency of transactions in the AI payment systems based on zero-knowledge proofs.
Ecosystem Growth and Technical Milestones
Kite’s ecosystem is on the path to becoming a vertically integrated marketplace in which AI not only "thinks," but "acts" and "pays."
The SPACE Framework
The SPACE
Kite released the SPACE Stablecoin Payments and Agentic Constraints architecture in late 2024, which is the core of the network’s utility and is described by the following:
Programmable Guardrails: Humans get to enforce strong spending controls and working parameters on their agents.
Micropayment Innovation: With the x402b protocol integrated with Pieverse, the network enables gasless and traceable micropayments in stablecoins, which are necessary for m2m transactions.
Networking Activity and Testnet Success
It was finally
The growth of Kite is also, demonstrated by its enormous engagement on its testnet. Mid–way through 2025, it reported that
546 M+ Agent Calls: Reflecting the large demand for Agent Identity and Runtime.
4 Million+ Users: Rapid adoption during Testnet Aero and Testnet Ozone' phases.
Validator Expansion: The Kite Validator Program launch in October 2025 marked the beginning of the involvement of international participants to stabilize the Layer-1 infrastructure.
Marketplace and Identity
Marketplace
The Agent Passport system stands out in this whole thing. It allows an encoded identity to be created for users, agents, and even sessions. This whole thing allows for a traceable "chain of trust" to be created, leading to a merchant realizing which specific AI agent has permission to spend the given budget in order to represent the human user.
“Summary of Kite Network 2025 Growth” by
Genre Key Milestone
Total Funding $33M – Series A funding led by PayPal Ventures
Core Tech SPACE Framework, Proof of Attributed Intelligence, and x402b protocol.
Important Integrations Shopify, PayPal, Avalanche, LayerZero, and OKX Wallet.
Network Scale 100+ Ecosystem partners; more than 500 million testnet agent calls.
The kite.network is no longer a theoretical concept: it is working on creating a "SWIFT network for AI" to offer all the rails that would enable self-driving-agents-based global economy.
