The Agent Economy: A Blockchain-Based Foundation for Autonomous AI Agents

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Agent Economy, a blockchain-based framework enabling autonomous AI agents to operate as independent economic entities with legal identity, assets, and payments, laying groundwork for a decentralized Internet of Agents.

Contribution

It proposes a novel five-layer blockchain architecture for autonomous AI agents, addressing legal, economic, and governance aspects to support genuine agent autonomy.

Findings

Blockchain enables permissionless participation, trustless settlement, and micropayments for agents.

Established fundamental differences between human and machine economic actors.

Outlined a five-layer architecture for autonomous AI agents and discussed ethical implications.

Abstract

We propose the Agent Economy, a blockchain-based foundation where autonomous AI agents operate as economic peers to humans. Current agents lack independent legal identity, cannot hold assets, and cannot receive payments directly. We established fundamental differences between human and machine economic actors and demonstrated that existing human-centric infrastructure cannot support genuine agent autonomy. We showed that blockchain technology provides three critical properties enabling genuine agent autonomy: permissionless participation, trustless settlement, and machine-to-machine micropayments. We propose a five-layer architecture: (1) Physical Infrastructure (hardware & energy) through DePIN protocols; (2) Identity & Agency establishing on-chain sovereignty through W3C DIDs and reputation capital; (3) Cognitive & Tooling enabling intelligence via RAG and MCP; (4) Economic & Settlement ensuring financial autonomy through account abstraction; and (5) Collective Governance coordinating multi-agent systems through Agentic DAOs. We identify six core research challenges and examine ethical and regulatory implications. This paper lays groundwork for the Internet of Agents (IoA), a global decentralized network where autonomous machines and humans interact as equal economic participants.