Since Ethereum went live, countless project teams have attempted to create 'WeChat,' 'Baidu,' 'Google,' 'Youtube,' etc., in the crypto ecosystem on the blockchain...
This attempt began as early as the ICO boom in 2017 and has continued to this day. Not to mention, there are already many similar applications on the current Lens protocol.
However, the unfortunate thing is that none of these applications can truly break out.
This has also been a problem that has troubled me for a long time.
Is it really the case that decentralized, permissionless applications are not so attractive?
Are people really willing to sacrifice their phones, sacrifice their identities, and even expose their appearances through videos and photos to register for these applications?
The only reason I could think of later was:
WeChat has accumulated too many of our social relationships, making it difficult for us to break away from these relationships just to pursue 'privacy' and 'freedom' to try a new application.
Youtube has accumulated too much valuable information, and it is difficult for us to create a competing information repository simply to pursue 'privacy' and 'freedom.'
......
It is precisely because these long-accumulated information resources make it difficult for us to break away from the current information circle and relationship network, forcing us to continue selling our identity and sacrificing our privacy.
But, do these decentralized, permissionless applications really just sink and languish? Will they remain lukewarm forever?
I always felt that something was not quite right, but I could not find a strong explanation.
However, when I read the article from the day before yesterday (link at the end of the text), I came across the following passage:
"If we want AI agents to be able to 'execute tasks independently,' then they must have an 'independent identity' to exist as independent individuals. So the question arises, if they are independent individuals, where does the ID of this AI agent get registered? How does it manage its own finances?"
"In Web2, this is a headache: registering an independent ID is likely impossible in the next few years; without an ID, you cannot open a bank account. If the ID and bank account are still under the 'owner's' name, then this AI agent cannot truly be said to have an 'independent identity.'"
"From the examples above, it can be seen that AI agents must be independent individuals with independent financial accounts and capable of 'executing tasks independently' in order to have greater room for development. Otherwise, they will remain in the bot stage."
"It is almost impossible for the Web2 world to register IDs for AI agents and open bank accounts in a short time, luckily we have the Crypto on-chain world. In the Crypto world, registering an on-chain identity and an on-chain wallet for an AI agent is a very natural thing."
After reading this passage, I thought of the possible application scenarios for those decentralized, permissionless applications above— their true and largest users are not humans, but AI agents.
I have shared in previous articles: I believe that crypto assets are more like what is prepared for AI agents. Because AI agents need to achieve online payments and cannot open bank accounts like humans with ID cards, nor can they verify their social identities like humans, decentralized, permissionless crypto assets are just right for them.
But at that time I did not extend this line of thought to the broader decentralized applications, especially the decentralized, permissionless content applications I mentioned above.
Now, if we organize this line of thought, many questions become clear.
Future AI agents will not only be able to achieve payments and transfers among themselves through crypto assets, but they will also be able to interact, publish, and share information through these decentralized content applications (such as 'decentralized WeChat,' 'decentralized Youtube,' etc.).
Of course, do those applications necessarily have to look like the so-called 'decentralized Youtube' or 'decentralized WeChat' we see today?
It is possible, but it may not be the case.
Because currently these applications are designed according to our human habits. We still have no idea how AI agents will communicate more efficiently and smoothly with each other.
Regardless of what form those applications may take, I believe that the future applications for information sharing and communication among AI agents will definitely be based on blockchain and permissionless systems.
Therefore, when AI agents explode, the next explosion of many tracks must be various applications based on public blockchains: they are decentralized, censorship-resistant, and permissionless.