Not Invented Here—So Why Did PayPal Outsource Its Next-Gen Rails? PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst just led an $18 million Series A into Kite AI, a start-up building a Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built for AI-to-AI micro-payments. The cheque is small by Silicon-Valley standards, but the signal is deafening: the incumbent payments giants are staring at a “plumbing crisis” and would rather rent than own the next set of pipes. While Stripe is coding its own chain (Tempo) and Circle is polishi...

Not Invented Here—So Why Did PayPal Outsource Its Next-Gen Rails? PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst just led an $18 million Series A into Kite AI, a start-up building a Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built for AI-to-AI micro-payments. The cheque is small by Silicon-Valley standards, but the signal is deafening: the incumbent payments giants are staring at a “plumbing crisis” and would rather rent than own the next set of pipes. While Stripe is coding its own chain (Tempo) and Circle is polishi...