AI Payment Revolution: Reshaping the Global Economic Landscape

For nearly a century, economic activity has always been centered around humans. However, the rise of AI technology is redefining this landscape, transforming machines from passive tools into "active economic agents" -- AI Agents.

During the Spring Festival of 2025, Tether announced the integration of USDT into the Bitcoin ecosystem, covering its base layer and Lightning Network. Behind this trend lies a transformation: payment infrastructure powered by AI Agents is driving the cryptocurrency industry into a new wave of innovation. From the consensus layer of Bitcoin to the execution layer of smart contracts, and now to the AI-driven application layer, the cryptocurrency industry is likely to welcome a paradigm innovation of AI + Pay Fi + BTC Infra, facilitating the transition from Web2 to Web3. The future of mass adoption is gradually becoming a reality.

1. Stablecoins: The Cornerstone of a New Era in Global Payments

The programmability, cross-border usability, and increasingly clear regulatory framework of stablecoins are expected to make them the standard settlement currency for global payments. With the advancement of cryptocurrency-friendly policies, the application scenarios for stablecoins will gradually expand. In the next 10 years, stablecoin payments may show the following development trends:

Short-term (1-3 years): Stablecoins will dominate cross-border remittances, providing faster and cheaper solutions than traditional systems. Crypto-related payment cards will simplify consumption, connecting on-chain wealth with real-world transactions.

Mid-term (3-7 years): Enterprises will widely adopt stablecoins due to their low fees, instant settlement, and programmability. Companies will be able to seamlessly convert between cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies, providing customers with dual-track payment options.

Long-term (over 7 years): Stablecoins will become mainstream fiat currencies, widely accepted for payments and even tax payments, fundamentally transforming traditional financial infrastructure.

Stablecoins also provide entrepreneurs with a more accessible platform to develop new payment products without intermediaries, minimum balances, or proprietary SDKs. It is estimated that medium to large enterprises could see a profit increase of 2% by using stablecoin solutions. Additionally, some countries have tried using stablecoins for international trade to bypass the dollar settlement system. An increasing number of cases indicate that stablecoins are gradually approaching their optimal market positioning.

2. AI Agents: The New User Experience Layer for Future Applications

Today, AI is no longer limited to executing single tasks but has become an independent market participant. This change involves AI-driven financial trading, intelligent supply chain management, and generative AI that provides services to content creators, developers, and businesses. Furthermore, AI agents can autonomously negotiate, trade, settle, and optimize their resource utilization.

At the end of last year, we saw AI Agents redefining the landscape of decentralized applications. Some AI Agents are capable of autonomously using tokens for transactions, generating content, and even managing their own cryptocurrency wallets and assets. This evolution of capability has given rise to innovative concepts in the crypto space, such as Virtual Protocol -- a protocol similar to Pump.fun, but its "Pump" objects are a variety of AI Agents.

The continuously evolving capabilities of AI Agents, combined with ready-to-use distribution platforms, have opened up billion-level market opportunities for the concept of AI Agent + Crypto. AI is becoming an active participant in on-chain ecosystems, driving blockchain applications from tool-based to ecosystem-based development.

In the future, AI will become the user experience layer of blockchain technology, connecting the application layer and blockchain infrastructure. For example, AI can proactively recommend and execute on-chain DeFi operations based on user intent and preferences, combined with real-time market information. Users do not need to understand complex technical details. In daily life, an AI personal finance assistant may autonomously manage taxes, insurance, and rent income and expenses, dynamically optimize investment portfolios, and even automatically execute trades based on market changes.

To ensure safety, the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) has become a key infrastructure that isolates the computing environment to ensure that the behavior of the AI Agent fully adheres to preset logic, free from external manipulation. AI Agents running in a TEE can earn income through content creation while maintaining absolute control over their asset keys. AI can also operate Depin nodes or validate data, becoming a core executor in distributed systems.

The workflows and application scenarios of these AI Agents are outlining a brand new "machine economy" landscape: from gamers to Depin managers, from content creators to financial strategists, AI Agents will become the core driving force of the on-chain ecosystem.

3. The Dilemma of Existing Payment Systems

Despite the broad prospects of the AI economy, the existing payment systems have many limitations:

3.1 Economic Imbalance of Micropayments

The high fixed fees of traditional payment networks make small, high-frequency trading impractical. For example, an AI agent conducts 1,000 transactions of $0.0001 every second, and using traditional payment networks incurs at least $0.30 in fees per transaction. This cost structure clearly cannot support the operation of an AI economy.

3.2 The fatal flaw of settlement speed

AI agents require millisecond-level transaction settlement, but the settlement speeds of traditional payment networks and mainstream cryptocurrencies are far from sufficient:

• Credit Card Payment: 1-3 Days
• International transfer: 2-5 days
• Cryptocurrency payment: an average of 10 minutes or longer

3.3 Limitations of Centralized Architecture

AI agents are essentially global, but traditional payment systems are constrained by bank accounts, fiat currency compliance, and regional payment rules:

• Bank account dependency: AI agents cannot open bank accounts like humans.
• Centralized control: Trades by AI agents may be rejected due to regulatory or compliance issues.
• International payment barriers: cross-border transactions face cumbersome compliance requirements

3.4 Five Core Requirements of the AI Economic Payment System

The payment system for AI services in the future must have:

1. Micro-payment capability: supports transactions of very small amounts, with fees approaching zero.
2. Millisecond-level transaction settlement: real-time settlement, rather than waiting for minutes or days.
3. Decentralization and Anti-Censorship: AI agents need to trade autonomously, without relying on centralized financial institutions.
4. Global Availability: Supports cross-border transactions, avoiding reliance on bank accounts.
5. Intelligent Payment Protocol: Seamless interaction with AI agents, supporting features such as automatic settlement and smart trading routing.

4. The Hopes and Limitations of Blockchain Payments

Although blockchain technology brings hope to the AI economy, mainstream blockchains still face some issues:

High costs of payments on the Ethereum network 4.1

As the main infrastructure for DeFi, Ethereum's high transaction costs make it difficult for the AI economy to adopt. During network congestion, simple transactions may require gas fees of $10 to $50, making it challenging to support the high-frequency trading demands of AI agents.

4.2 The speed and centralization issues of other high-performance public chains

Some high-performance public chains offer faster transaction processing capabilities, but they often have a higher degree of centralization, which poses security risks. There have been multiple instances of downtime in the past, affecting transaction stability. Most public chains rely on only a few validation nodes, which may impact the decentralized nature of payment systems.

4.3 Scalability Bottleneck of Bitcoin Mainnet

Bitcoin, as the most secure and decentralized blockchain globally, has unparalleled security, but its payment capability is limited. The mainnet transaction throughput is extremely low (only 7 transactions per second), and gas fees soar when faced with a large number of transaction requests, making it unsuitable for small payments by AI agents.

4.4 Lightning Network: A New Stage for Stablecoin Payments

The Lightning Network, as a second-layer scaling solution for Bitcoin, relies on the security of the Bitcoin network to achieve instant, low-cost, and infinitely scalable transaction capabilities through bidirectional payment channels. This technological approach is highly suitable for small, high-frequency payment scenarios, while also aligning with the ideals of fundamentalist crypto enthusiasts. Currently, the Lightning Network has over 15,000 nodes and more than 50,000 channels, demonstrating strong ecological potential.

However, the Lightning Network previously only supported Bitcoin as the payment currency, limiting its application scenarios. The introduction of stablecoins is crucial: history shows that only currencies with stable value can be widely accepted and used in daily payment scenarios.

Tether's USDT is currently the dominant stablecoin in the crypto world. As of now, the total issuance of USDT exceeds 140 billion dollars, more than double that of USDC. Tether's integration of USDT into the Lightning Network signifies recognition of the network's security and usability. The real on-chain users and transaction fee income brought by USDT are resources that every public chain dreams of. This also marks a true opportunity for the Lightning Network after years of development.

5. All preparations are complete, only waiting for the east wind.

The explosive growth of AI Agents is giving rise to a trillion-level machine economy, but traditional payment networks and existing blockchain solutions struggle to meet its demands. The integration of USDT into the Lightning Network seems to provide a key piece of the puzzle for the industry -- near-zero cost, censorship-resistant payment channels, combined with the liquidity of stablecoins, perfectly fitting the micropayment and real-time transaction scenarios of AI agents.

AISA has emerged in response to the times. It is not just a simple stacking of technology stacks, but a "financial operating system" tailored for the AI economy, allowing the AI economy to truly break free from payment restrictions and move towards a future of autonomous interaction. In the future AI economy, payment equals efficiency, and transactions equal intelligence.

6. AISA: The Ultimate Fusion of Lightning Network, Stablecoins, and AI Agents

6.1 AISA's four-layer technical architecture

The architecture of AISA is divided into four core layers:

a. Settlement Layer

• Underlying Network: Bitcoin Network (L1) + Lightning Network (L2)
• Advantages: High security, millisecond-level transaction confirmation, nearly zero fees

b. Payment Layer

• Multichain support: compatible with public chains such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, etc.
• Stablecoin Integration: AISA's native stablecoin aiUSD circulates on the Lightning Network with USDT and USDC.

c. Programmable Layer

• AI Native Protocol (AIP): Empowering AI agents with autonomous decision-making capabilities
• Dynamic Routing: Automatically switch to the optimal payment path
• Automated micropayments: on-demand settlement without manual intervention
• Liquidity Management: AI agents can dynamically allocate funds to liquidity pools.

d. Governance Layer

• DAO Mechanism: Token holders govern collectively, deciding on protocol upgrades, fee distribution, etc.
• Incentive mechanism: Liquidity providers stake to earn rewards, with part of the fees used for token burning.

6.2 AISA How does it redefine AI economic payments?

AISA is designed specifically for the AI economy, integrating the decentralized efficiency of the Bitcoin Lightning Network, the liquidity guarantees of stablecoins, and the intelligent decision-making capabilities of AI native protocols. It builds a payment network with near-zero cost and millisecond-level response, breaking through the high cost and low efficiency bottlenecks of traditional systems.

On AISA, AI agents can autonomously complete micropayments, real-time settlement of DePIN node contribution rewards, and even dynamically optimize cross-chain transaction paths without human intervention. From cross-border corporate payments to high-frequency trading of automated financial strategies, AISA's adaptability is driving the rise of the machine economy.

Through multi-chain compatibility and DAO governance, AISA not only addresses the fragmentation issues of the existing payment ecosystem but also sets a new standard for human-machine collaboration in the decentralized era as a "financial operating system." As stablecoins become the mainstream settlement tool and the Lightning Network connects global value flows, AISA's vision is to allow the machine economy to grow freely in a frictionless intelligent network.

7. Conclusion

When AI agents autonomously complete transactions, investments, and even pay taxes on-chain, payments are no longer a tool but the circulatory system of the machine economy. The Lightning Network provides the veins, stablecoins act as the blood, and AI agents become the heart -- this silent revolution, like