Do AI agents require large-scale deployment, and do they need cryptocurrencies? How does Crypto solve the combination + verification problem?

To achieve autonomy and scalability, AI Agents must possess composability and verifiability, which are core capabilities provided by cryptocurrencies. This enables smart contracts, identities, and value transfers to be verified, allowing AI to truly integrate into automated real economic systems.

For AI Agents to become truly “widely deployable autonomous software,” there are two essential capabilities: composability + verifiability.

These two points are precisely what traditional Web2 cannot provide, but are inherently available in cryptocurrency systems.

AI needs composability, and composability must be built on verifiability

The future of AI Agents is not just a single model, but: automatically invoking other services; combining with other Agents; auto-writing code; auto-testing; auto-executing decisions (including actions involving funds). This is called agent composability.

The problem is: if one Agent calls another Agent, but you cannot verify that the other party truly executed as expected, then the entire automation ecosystem cannot close the loop.

Web2 infrastructure (API + SaaS) cannot provide this level of strong verifiability because: APIs are black boxes; data can be tampered with; execution results cannot be proven; permissions depend on centralized audits; money cannot be automatically settled.

In other words: Web2 Agents cannot fully trust another Web2 Agent. So automation is limited to “demo level.”

Cryptocurrency provides the missing “verifiable foundational layer” for AI

Crypto offers three major capabilities needed for the future AI ecosystem at the foundational level:

Verifiable execution

Smart contracts are transparent and provable. ZK proofs enable verification of complex off-chain executions. AI can confirm “the other party indeed did what I asked.”

Verifiable identity

Decentralized identities (DID/Key), and Agent code itself can be signed.

Solves the questions: who did it, whether it is trustworthy, whether it has been tampered with.

Verifiable value transfer

Smart contracts support: automatic deductions, automatic payments, multi-party profit sharing, collateral and penalties, escrow mechanisms.

This allows AI to directly manage and allocate funds without relying on institutions. This is something Web2 cannot do.

AI programming requires “self-testing,” and involving funds further necessitates “automatic verifiability”

Anthropic’s recent acquisition of Bun is a signal:

AI is upgrading from “auto code writing” to a complete cycle of “auto writing → auto testing → auto running → auto fixing.”

Once AI automatically runs code and allows the code to directly impact the real world, such as executing trades, managing budgets, paying API fees, participating in economic activities, it must rely on the cryptographic, verifiable fund security system.

Otherwise, AI is just a toy and cannot engage in the real economy.

Crypto enables AI to:

• Automatically penalize for “execution errors”;
• Automatically reward for “contributions”;
• Automatically settle when multiple Agents collaborate;
• Achieve automatic settlement without human trust.

This is an essential component of the future AI Agent economy.

Summarized in one sentence

AI enables software to be autonomous; Crypto makes autonomy trustworthy. Without the verifiability provided by cryptocurrencies, AI Agents cannot operate at scale in the real economy.

• This article is reprinted with permission from：《Deep潮 TechFlow》
• Original title: 《Why is Crypto the key infrastructure for large-scale deployment of AI Agents?》
• Original author: Blockchain Knight