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...