I did not start thinking about autonomous software as an economic actor until I realized most of the capital moving through crypto no longer waits for human intent.
When I analyzed recent payment and trading data the picture was already clear. Visa's 2024 digital assets report showed stablecoin settlement volume exceeding 13 trillion dollars in a single year quietly rivaling traditional payment networks. CEX IO followed with a breakdown indicating that more than 70 percent of stablecoin transactions were initiated by automated systems not people clicking wallets. At that point the question stopped being whether software participates in markets and became how poorly our infrastructure reflects that reality.
Kite sits right in the middle of that disconnect. Instead of framing blockchains as places where humans occasionally deploy bots, Kite treats autonomous software as the primary economic citizen. In my assessment, that changes how we should think about fees, incentives and value capture entirely.
When software becomes the customer
Most economic systems assume a human buyer with patience, emotion, and limited bandwidth. Autonomous software has none of those traits. It optimizes relentlessly, transacts continuously, and abandons inefficient systems without hesitation. My research into agent-based architectures kept leading me to the same conclusion: software does not want better UX, it wants fewer assumptions.
Kite’s design reflects that. Agents can hold scoped identities, manage budgets, execute trades, and settle payments without waiting for approvals. It’s less like opening a bank account and more like provisioning cloud infrastructure. That distinction matters because cloud economics are already automated end-to-end, while financial economics are not.
The cost structure reinforces this point. Ethereum Foundation data showed average Layer 1 fees sitting between one and three dollars through much of 2024. That’s tolerable for humans, but catastrophic for agents making thousands of micro-decisions per day. Kite’s low cost, high frequency settlement is not a nice to have; it’s the minimum requirement for autonomous software to operate economically.
The fragile parts of an agent driven economy
I don’t think the economics of autonomous software are automatically stable. In fact, they may be more fragile than human-driven markets. The BIS warned in a 2023 report that algorithmic systems can amplify feedback loops, creating liquidity that disappears faster than it forms. When many agents optimize similar incentives, coordination can flip into congestion almost instantly.
There is also a value signal problem. High transaction counts don’t necessarily mean productive activity. I have seen networks where bots pay each other endlessly, generating impressive charts and little else. In my opinion, Kite's future credibility depends on whether agent activity is aligned with real external value, not just internal churning.
And regulation also looms over the horizon. The OECD's 2024 AI governance paper highlighted the fact that autonomous systems blur accountability, particularly in financial contexts: when an agent executes a bad trade, or drains liquidity, who is responsible? Kite’s identity framework helps technically, but the legal layer is still undefined.
How I’m thinking about Kite in market terms
From a market perspective, I treat Kite as a slow-burn infrastructure play, not a momentum asset. When narratives peak, I step back. What interests me more is what happens when markets go quiet. If autonomous software continues to transact, rebalance, and pay fees during low-volatility periods, that’s real demand. In my personal notes, I’ve marked consolidation ranges as more meaningful than breakouts. If price compresses while on-chain agent activity remains stable or grows, that’s often where infrastructure gets mispriced. Conversely, if price rallies while usage stalls, I assume the economics haven’t caught up to the story.
Comparing Kite to other scaling solutions sharpens this view. Ethereum Layer 2s optimize for human DeFi flows. Solana optimizes for speed in human trading. AI-focused chains often concentrate on data or model access. Kite is targeting something narrower and riskier: the economic life of autonomous software itself.
That’s a controversial bet. But markets are already telling us that software moves faster, transacts more, and cares less about narratives than humans ever will. If that trend continues, the question isn’t whether autonomous software needs an economic system. It’s whether existing systems can adapt fast enough or whether something like Kite becomes unavoidable.
