Crypto is Built for Machines, Not Humans. We Just Needed the Machines to Get Smarter. Now They Are.
August 17, 2024
The evolution of crypto underscores the idea that the future of decentralized systems might belong more to machines than to humans. For years, efforts have focused on making blockchain technology accessible by improving user interfaces and experiences. Yet, despite numerous advancements, crypto infrastructure remains complex and unintuitive for humans. Conversely, machines are intelligent, rapidly evolving, and capable of autonomous interactions and are ideally positioned to thrive within this ecosystem.
Micropayments: Value Transfer Future
As AI systems mature, the limitations of traditional pricing models become increasingly evident. We are shifting away from per-seat pricing towards outcome-based pricing, where users pay based on tangible results generated by AI agents. Micropayments form the backbone of this transition, enabling precise, real-time transactions on a scale impossible with traditional methods. Significantly, outcome-based pricing naturally aligns with utility-based pricing, deriving value directly from service utility.
This dynamic pricing model demands instantaneous, fluid transactions, something crypto systems effortlessly facilitate through microtransactions, rollups, and programmatic transfers. AI-powered machines can manage these interactions more efficiently than humans, removing friction and ensuring seamless value transfer.
Machines Solve the Crypto UX Problem
The crypto industry has long sought to make decentralized technologies user-friendly. Yet, despite simplified wallets, improved onboarding, and streamlined approval processes, crypto UX remains cumbersome for the average user. The process of creating wallets, managing multiple accounts, and approving transactions is still tedious, contributing to the failure of numerous startups aiming to solve these issues. But what if the solution isn't about simplifying crypto for humans, but rather allowing machines to manage it entirely?
AI agents, capable of autonomously interacting with complex systems, do not require human-intuitive interfaces. Crypto UX is inherently simpler for machines, as they effortlessly handle approvals, execute programmatic transactions, and manage wallets at speeds and scales humans cannot match. Machines don't struggle with complicated interfaces; they require only clear, functional, programmable protocols. As AI agents take more responsibility, they could entirely eliminate the need for humans to engage with complex crypto interfaces.
Incentives Flowing Like a River: A Machine-Driven Economy
One of crypto's most compelling aspects has always been its potential for creative monetization. Designing systems with seamlessly integrated incentives has captivated true innovators. While financial engineering often dominates the discourse, crypto's real beauty lies in creating self-sustaining ecosystems with incentives embedded in every interaction.
Machines, better than humans, can manage and optimize these incentives effectively. From micropayments unlocking utility, to incentivizing diverse content forms and creating scarce digital assets, AI agents continuously negotiate, adjust, and optimize these incentive flows in real time. Machines excel in environments with inherently complex incentive structures.
The rise of programmatic transactions, where machines autonomously manage payments based on predetermined conditions, will drive innovation further. As machines interact via decentralized protocols, they'll handle massive micropayment volumes, ensuring incentives flow smoothly, rewarding each agent appropriately for their contributions.
A World for Machines
In this vision, AI agents become essential, rather than optional, in the crypto ecosystem. Humans will step back as machines manage decentralized interactions like handling wallets, facilitating microtransactions, and ensuring incentive distribution across networks. Without the barriers posed by human-centered UX, machines can optimize decentralized systems far beyond our current capacities.
This scenario isn't purely speculative. AI is rapidly becoming smarter, crypto infrastructure is evolving to handle high-throughput demands, and decentralized networks have never been more robust. The convergence of AI and blockchain may well lead to a machine-driven economic landscape characterized by frictionless value transfer, knowledge sharing, and content distribution.
Perhaps it's time to accept the possibility that crypto was always intended for machines. Now that machines are sufficiently intelligent, should we allow them to take over?