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「AI + Lightning Network + Stablecoin」 Trio: A New Era for Comprehensive Adoption of BTC Ecosystem Payments

2025-03-18 13:55

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Author: Evan Lu, Waterdrip Capital; Leo, AISA

Introduction

For the past century, the fundamental unit of economic activity has always been human. Whether it is production, trade, payment, or financial services, it revolves around human needs. However, the rise of AI technology is reshaping this landscape, transforming machines from passive tools into "active economic entities" — AI Agents.

Furthermore, on the occasion of the 2025 Lunar New Year, Tether announced the integration of USDT into the BTC ecosystem, covering its base layer and the Lightning Network. Behind various trends, a revolution is quietly brewing: an AI Agent-driven payment infrastructure is forcefully driving the cryptocurrency industry into a new wave of innovation. From BTC's consensus layer to the smart contract execution layer, and now to the AI-driven application layer, the cryptocurrency industry is likely to witness a paradigmatic innovation of AI + Pay Fi + BTC Infra, driving Web2 towards a self-reinvention into Web3 — the future of widespread adoption is gradually becoming a reality.

1. Stablecoin: The Cornerstone of a Global Payment New Era — A Decade Evolution from Cross-Border Revolution to Mainstream Currency

The programmability, cross-border utility, and increasingly clear regulatory framework of stablecoins are expected to become the standard settlement currency for global payments. With a crypto-friendly Trump reelected as U.S. President, the U.S. government will gradually provide regulatory clarity regarding cryptocurrencies. The application scenarios of stablecoins will expand step by step. We can even envision a bright future for stablecoin payments in the next 10 years:

Short-term (1–3 years): Stablecoins will dominate cross-border remittances, offering a faster and cheaper alternative to SWIFT. Cryptocurrency-related debit/credit cards (like Visa/MasterCard) will simplify consumption, bridging on-chain wealth with real-world transactions.

Medium-term (3–7 years): Enterprises will increasingly adopt stablecoin payments due to low fees, instant settlement, and programmability. Companies will be able to seamlessly convert between cryptocurrency and fiat, providing dual-track payment options for customers.

Long-term (7 years and beyond): Stablecoins will become mainstream fiat currencies, widely accepted for payments and even tax payments, completely disrupting the traditional financial infrastructure.

In addition to the convenience of payments, stablecoins still have a significantly positive impact in other areas: for example, providing entrepreneurs with an easier platform to develop new payment products: no intermediaries, minimal balances, or proprietary SDKs. Furthermore, based on rough estimates, if medium to large-sized enterprises can use a stablecoin solution service provider in transactions, business profits could increase by 2%. Additionally, countries like Russia, subject to U.S. sanctions, have tried using stablecoins for international trade to bypass the dollar settlement system. More and more cases indicate that stablecoins are gradually approaching the optimal market fit. This is not surprising — they are undoubtedly the most economical way to settle in dollars, the fastest global payment method.

2. Next Level: AI Agents Will Be the Future App's New User Experience Layer

Today, we are no longer relying solely on AI to perform single tasks such as image recognition, speech synthesis, or autonomous driving. Instead, we are entering an era where "AI Agents become independent market participants." This shift is not limited to AI-driven financial transactions or smart supply chain management but also involves Generative AI (AIGC) serving content creators, developers, and businesses. Furthermore, AI agents can even "autonomously negotiate, transact, settle, and optimize their resource utilization."

Just at the end of last year, we have seen AI Agents redefine the use cases of DApps, with pioneers of this trend such as @truth_terminal, an AI Agent capable of self-promoting its issued token $GOAT; followed closely by Luna and AIxbt, among others, these AI Agents can autonomously trade using tokens, generate content, and even manage their own crypto wallets and assets. This evolutionary capability has given rise to innovation in the narrative of the crypto space, such as the Virtual Protocol—a protocol similar to Pump.fun but where the "Pump" target is no longer just a token but a myriad of AI Agents.

The ever-evolving capabilities of AI Agents, combined with out-of-the-box issuance platforms, have opened up a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity for the AI Agent + Crypto concept. AI is becoming an active participant in the on-chain ecosystem, driving blockchain applications from being tools to becoming ecosystems.

Top 10 AI Agent Market Cap Ranking on Virtual Protocol, as of February 11, 2025, Data Source: https://app.virtuals.io/sentients?sortBy=mcapInVirtual&sortOrder=desc&page=1

In the future, AI will become the user experience layer of blockchain technology, connecting the application layer and the blockchain infrastructure, playing a dual role both upwards and downwards in the tech stack. To give a relatable example for crypto users, AI will proactively recommend and execute on-chain DeFi operations based on user intent and preferences (such as security, yield, etc.), combined with real-time market insights. Users won't need to understand the difference between L1 and L2, or even how cross-chain bridges work. Expanding into daily life, imagine a scenario where an AI personal finance assistant autonomously manages your taxes, insurance, rent payments, dynamically optimizes your investment portfolio, and even automatically executes trades based on market changes. Of course, while granting economic autonomy to AI, security is a critical concern. Hence, Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) become a key infrastructure for this. Through isolating the computing environment, TEE ensures that the AI Agent's behavior fully complies with preset logic and is not subject to external manipulation. For instance, an AI Agent running in a TEE can both attract users through generated content to earn income and secure absolute control over its asset keys through encryption technology. Furthermore, AI can operate Depin nodes or validate data, becoming a central actor in its distributed system.

These AI Agents' workflows and application scenarios are outlining a 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 the Existing Payment System: The Intangible Shackles of the AI Economy

In the future, AI Agents will partially replace humans, becoming independent participants in the market and forming a significant force. However, the revolution of this Machine Economy is not without its challenges, one of the most critical being "payments." The realization of the AI revolution relies on creating an efficient, secure, and decentralized payment network built using blockchain technology to provide AI Agents with seamless economic interaction capabilities.

3.1 The Economic Imbalance of Micro Payments

Imagine a scenario where an AI agent is running a high-frequency trading strategy, requiring to complete 1000 transactions per second, with each transaction amounting to only $0.0001. If using traditional payment networks (such as Visa, PayPal), each transaction would incur a minimum fee of $0.30, meaning that for every $0.0001 transaction, the AI agent would pay a fee 3000 times the amount. This absurd cost structure directly hinders the AI economy from operating on the existing payment system.

3.2 Fatal Flaw of Settlement Speed

For an AI agent, transactions are not isolated events but a continuous flow. However, the settlement process of traditional payment networks is severely lagging behind:

· Credit Card Payments: Usually take 1-3 days to settle.

· SWIFT International Transfers: Can take 2-5 days.

· Cryptocurrency Payments (e.g., Bitcoin on the main chain): Average around 10 minutes or even longer.

The AI economy requires settlement times in milliseconds, a demand that the existing payment system clearly cannot meet.

3.3 Limitations of Centralized Architecture

AI agents are fundamentally globalized, not bound by geographical borders. However, the traditional payment system is entangled in issues such as bank accounts, fiat compliance, and regional payment regulations.

· Bank Account Dependency: Most payment systems (like Visa, PayPal) require transacting parties to have bank accounts, something AI agents cannot do like humans.

· Centralized Control: Existing payment systems rely on a few financial institutions for approval, and AI agent transactions may be rejected at any time due to regulatory or compliance issues.

· International Payment Barriers: Cross-border transactions by AI agents face cumbersome compliance requirements, increasing operating costs and complexity.

If the AI economy must rely on the existing payment system, it will be constrained by artificial limitations, unable to truly unleash its potential.

3.4 Five Core Requirements of the AI Economy Payment System

Considering the operational characteristics and use cases of AI agents mentioned above, the future payment system serving AI must have the following five core capabilities:

· Micro Payment Capability: AI agent transactions often involve very small amounts (e.g., at the $0.0001 level) and must ensure extremely low fees, even approaching zero.

· Millisecond Transaction Settlement: AI transactions occur on a sub-second time scale, requiring the payment system to be able to settle transactions in **real-time** rather than waiting for minutes or even days.

· Decentralization and Anti-Censorship: AI agents need to transact autonomously, without relying on centralized financial institutions.

· Global Availability: AI agents are not bound by national borders, so the payment system must support cross-border transactions, avoiding bank account dependencies.

· Intelligent Payment Protocol: The payment system must be able to seamlessly interact with AI agents, supporting features such as automatic settlement, intelligent transaction routing, liquidity optimization, etc.

4. Hope and Limitations of Blockchain Payments

In the past few years, the rise of blockchain technology has brought a glimmer of hope to the AI economy. The decentralization, smart contracts, and permissionless transactions of blockchain make it an alternative to the traditional payment system. However, mainstream blockchain still faces the following issues:

4.1 High Costs of ETH Network Payments

ETH (Ethereum) is the primary infrastructure for DeFi (Decentralized Finance), but its high transaction costs make it challenging for the AI economy to adopt. During network congestion, a simple USDT transaction may require $10-$50 in Gas fees, the transaction throughput is limited, processing speed is slow, and it is difficult to support the high-frequency transaction demands of AI agents.

4.2 Speed and Centralization Issues of Other High-Performance Public Blockchains

The crypto ecosystem has seen the emergence of many high-performance public blockchains that do provide faster transaction processing capabilities, but they often have a higher degree of centralization, posing security risks. Over the past few years, some high-performance public blockchains have experienced downtime multiple times, affecting transaction stability. Furthermore, most public blockchains rely on only a few validation nodes, which could significantly impact the decentralization of the payment system.

4.3 Scalability Bottleneck of the BTC Mainnet

As the most secure and decentralized blockchain globally, BTC's security is unmatched. However, its payment capability is limited, with the BTC mainnet's transaction throughput being very low (only 7 transactions per second). When faced with high transaction volume requests, its gas fees surge, causing significant fluctuations in transaction costs, making it unsuitable for small-scale payments by AI agents.

Therefore, although blockchain technology provides a potential solution, relying solely on existing public blockchains cannot fully meet the payment needs of the AI economy.

4.4 Lightning Network—A New Stage for Stablecoin Payments

As BTC's first-layer-two scaling solution, the Lightning Network not only relies on BTC network security (with 57,000+ nodes and PoW mechanism) but also achieves instant, low-cost, and infinitely scalable transaction capabilities through bidirectional payment channels. This technological path is highly suited to small-scale high-frequency payment scenarios, while also aligning with the ideals of hardcore crypto enthusiasts—all transactions are based on the BTC network. Currently, the Lightning Network has over 15,000 nodes and 50,000+ channels, demonstrating strong ecosystem potential.

However, the Lightning Network is not without its flaws. Before the Taproot Assets protocol appeared, the Lightning Network only supported BTC as the payment currency, limiting its use cases. In today's world where BTC has become "digital gold," most people are unwilling to easily spend their held BTC. At this point, the importance of stablecoins is self-evident: throughout history, only currencies with stable value can be widely accepted and used in daily payment scenarios. For more on the technical principles of the Lightning Network and the TA protocol, see this article: Taproot Assets: The Next Growth Point Beyond Trillion-Dollar Market Cap for Stablecoin Racetrack.

Undoubtedly, the USDT issued by Tether remains the stablecoin hegemon in the crypto world. As of today, USDC has a total supply of 56.3 billion US dollars, while USDT's total supply is above 140 billion US dollars, more than twice that of the second-largest USDC. Tether's integration of USDT into the Lightning Network is of great significance. This action is seen by users as a form of endorsement—after all, USDT is an asset backed by real gold and silver, and its minting signifies Tether's endorsement of public chain security and usability. More importantly, the on-chain users and transaction fee income brought by USDT are the coveted resources for various public chains. This also indicates that, after many years of development, the era has truly come for the Lightning Network to showcase its potential.

5. All Is Ready Except the East Wind

The explosive growth of AI agents is driving the emergence of a trillion-dollar-level machine economy landscape. However, it is obvious that the traditional payment network (high cost, low speed) and existing blockchain solutions are struggling to meet its demands. The integration of USDT into the Lightning Network seems to provide a key piece of the puzzle for the industry—an almost zero-cost, censorship-resistant payment channel, overlaying the liquidity of stablecoins, perfectly suited for AI agents' micropayment and real-time transaction scenarios.

Thus, AISA comes into being. It is not just a simple stack of technologies but a "financial operating system" tailored for the AI economy, allowing the AI economy to truly break free from payment shackles and move towards a future of autonomous interaction. In the future AI economy, there is no need to wait—payment means efficiency, and transactions mean intelligence.

6. AISA: The Ultimate Fusion of the Lightning Network, Stablecoins, and AI Agents—Redefining the AI Economy Payment Foundation

6.1 AISA's Four-Layer Technology Architecture

AISA's architecture can be divided into four core levels that work together to enable AI agents to transact freely and efficiently.

a. Settlement Layer

Based on the underlying network: BTC network (L1) + Lightning Network (L2). The core advantages of its settlement layer are:

Security: Leveraging Bitcoin's PoW mechanism and a decentralized network (over 57,000 nodes globally).

Efficiency: Millisecond-level transaction confirmation, near-zero fees, completely solving the pain points of AI high-frequency micropayments.

b. Payment Layer

Multi-chain support: Compatible with blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, etc., allowing AI agents to freely choose the optimal chain.

Stablecoin Integration: AISA's self-issued aiUSD (native stablecoin) circulating on the Lightning Network as a payment currency alongside USDT and USDC through the Taproot Assets protocol.

c. Programmable Layer

AI Native Protocol (AIP): Empowers AI agents with autonomous decision-making capabilities.

Dynamic Routing: Real-time analysis of transaction fees and network congestion, automatically switching payment paths (e.g., Lightning Network → Solana).

Automated Microtransactions: On-demand settlement (e.g., paying $0.0001 per API call) without human intervention.

Liquidity Management: AI agents can dynamically allocate funds to liquidity pools to optimize payment efficiency.

d. Governance Layer

DAO Mechanism: Governed collectively by token LPT holders to decide on protocol upgrades, fee allocation, etc.

Incentive Mechanism: Liquidity providers stake LPT to earn rewards (transaction fee sharing). A portion of the fees is used for token burning, driving a deflationary model.

6.2 How Does AISA Redefine AI Economy Payments?

AISA is not a simple extension of traditional blockchain payments but a revolutionary infrastructure designed for the AI economy. By integrating the decentralized efficiency of the Bitcoin Lightning Network, the liquidity assurance of stablecoins, and the intelligent decision-making capabilities of the AI native protocol, AISA has built a nearly zero-cost, millisecond-level responsive payment network that completely eliminates the high cost and low efficiency bottlenecks of the traditional system. Here, AI agents can autonomously handle microtransactions (e.g., $0.0001 per API call), settle real-time DePIN node contribution rewards, and even dynamically optimize cross-chain transaction paths without human intervention.

From cross-border enterprise payments (replacing SWIFT to save costs) to high-frequency trading of automated financial strategies, AISA's adaptability is driving the rise of the machine economy—where AI agents may autonomously manage taxes, investments, forming an independent economic loop. Through multi-chain compatibility and DAO governance, AISA not only solves the fragmentation issue of the existing payment ecosystem but also, in the form of a "financial operating system," sets a new standard for human-machine collaboration in the decentralized era. As stablecoins become the mainstream settlement tool and the Lightning Network connects global value flow, AISA's vision is to let the machine economy thrive freely in a frictionless intelligent network.

7. Conclusion

When AI agents autonomously conduct transactions, investments, or even taxation on-chain, payments cease to be a tool but the circulatory system of the machine economy. The Lightning Network provides the blood vessels, stablecoins act as the blood, and AI agents become the heart—this silent revolution, like lightning, illuminates the future of the payment ecosystem. The future of payments does not belong to any institution or country but to every autonomous AI and participating node. Here, code is law, efficiency is justice, and true innovation is only just beginning.