The Changing Economic Model of the Internet
The internet’s economic model is shifting. As the open web gradually devolves into a single search box, a critical question arises: Will AI usher in a more open internet, or will it create a new labyrinth of paywalls? And who will control it—large centralized corporations or a broad base of users?
This is where cryptocurrency comes into play. The intersection of AI and crypto has been explored before; in short, blockchain offers a new way to build internet services and networks that are decentralized, trust-minimized, and user-owned. By renegotiating the economic mechanisms underpinning today’s systems, these networks counterbalance the centralizing forces already evident in AI, helping create a more open and resilient internet.
The idea that crypto can enable better AI systems—and vice versa—isn’t new, but its definition often remains unclear. Some intersections, like verifying "proof of personhood" in an era of low-cost AI systems, have already captured the attention of builders and users. Others may take years or even decades to materialize. Here, we outline 11 concrete use cases where crypto and AI converge, sparking discussions about future possibilities and challenges. These applications are grounded in technologies being developed today, from processing micropayments at scale to ensuring human agency in an AI-driven world.
Generative AI relies on data, but for many applications, context—state and background information tied to interactions—is equally, if not more, critical.
Ideally, AI systems—whether agents, LLM interfaces, or other applications—would remember details like the type of project you’re working on, your communication style, or your preferred programming language. In practice, users often have to re-establish this context across interactions within a single app (e.g., every time they launch a new ChatGPT or Claude session), let alone when switching between systems. Today, context from one generative AI app almost never transfers to another.
Blockchain can enable AI systems to store key contextual information as persistent digital assets, loadable at the start of a session and transferable seamlessly across platforms. Given their properties, blockchain protocols may be the only viable solution—offering forward compatibility and interoperability.
A natural application for this is AI-assisted gaming and media, where user preferences (from difficulty levels to keybindings) could remain consistent across environments. But its real value lies in knowledge-based applications, where AI must understand what users know and how they learn, as well as specialized domains like programming. Some businesses already deploy personalized bots operating within a global context, but this context is typically non-portable.
The closest existing solution is custom bots with fixed, persistent contexts. Platforms like Poe allow users to rent their bots to others, hinting at portability. Moving such activity on-chain would enable AI systems to share a contextual layer composed of key elements from all digital interactions. This would allow instant preference recognition and better-tailored experiences.
Moreover, just as on-chain IP registries empower creators, persistent context could unlock new markets for prompts and knowledge modules—letting users license or monetize expertise while retaining data control. Shared context could enable possibilities we haven’t yet imagined.
Identity is the authoritative record of who or what something is, underpinning discovery, aggregation, and payment systems. Today, platforms obscure this infrastructure, presenting identity as a finished product: Amazon assigns identifiers (ASINs or FNSKUs) to products, centralizes listings, and facilitates discovery and payments. Similarly, Facebook bases its News Feed—and by extension, Marketplace listings, posts, and ads—on user identity.
With AI agents, this is about to change. As companies deploy agents for customer service, logistics, payments, and more, platforms will no longer resemble single-interface apps. Instead, agents will operate across multiple interfaces, accumulating rich context and performing tasks autonomously. But tying an agent’s identity to one marketplace renders it unusable elsewhere—email threads, Slack channels, or other products.
Agents need a single, portable "passport." Without it, there’s no way to pay them, verify their version, query their capabilities, confirm whom they represent, or track their reputation across platforms. Agent identity must function as a wallet, API registry, changelog, and social proof—allowing any interface (email, Slack, or another agent) to interact with it uniformly. Without shared identity primitives, every integration starts from scratch, discovery remains ad hoc, and users lose context when switching channels.
Building agent infrastructure from scratch presents an opportunity: How can we create a trust-minimized identity layer richer than DNS records? Instead of replicating monolithic platforms that bundle identity with discovery and payments, we can empower agents to accept payments, list functionalities, and exist across ecosystems without platform lock-in. This is where crypto and AI intersect—blockchains offer permissionless composability, enabling better agents and user experiences.
Vertically integrated solutions like Facebook or Amazon currently deliver superior UX—ensuring coherent top-down design is inherently complex. But this convenience comes at a cost, especially as the software costs for agent aggregation, marketing, and distribution decline. A trust-minimized identity layer would let entrepreneurs own their passports, fostering innovation in design and distribution.
As AI proliferates, discerning whether online interactions involve real humans grows harder. This erosion of trust isn’t a future concern—it’s already here. From bot armies on X (Twitter) to dating app scams, reality is blurring. In this environment, proof of personhood (PoP) becomes critical infrastructure.
One approach is decentralized digital identity. Unlike traditional systems, decentralized PoP (e.g., World ID’s "Proof of Humanity") lets users control and custody their identity, verifying it privately and trust-minimized. Like a driver’s license, decentralized PoP is reusable across platforms—even those not yet built. Blockchain-based PoP is forward-compatible because it offers:
Portability: Protocols are public standards any platform can integrate. Decentralized PoP is managed via public infrastructure and fully user-controlled, ensuring compatibility now and in the future.
Permissionless access: Platforms can adopt PoP IDs without gatekeeping APIs that discriminate against use cases.
The challenge is adoption: While scalable PoP use cases are still emerging, network effects could accelerate as users, partners, and killer apps multiply. Each application leveraging a PoP standard increases its value to users, attracting more adopters—a virtuous cycle.
Already, mainstream apps in gaming, dating, and social media are partnering with World ID to verify human interactions. New protocols like Solana’s SAS (which privately links off-chain KYC data to wallets) are emerging. The tipping point for decentralized PoP may be near.
PoP isn’t just about banning bots—it draws a clear line between AI agents and human networks, enabling safer, more authentic digital experiences.
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