AI agents may require blockchain to solve impersonation and verification problems. The importance of verification has increased as it has been shown that agents can easily infiltrate social media.
AI could become a major application area for blockchain, especially when it comes to user and identity verification, A16Z said in his future predictions. analysis. The internet was created for human interaction, culminating in social media, but AI agents are making it faster and easier to tailor and produce content.
The activities of AI agents may soon become indistinguishable from those of humans, creating content at scale and linking it across platforms. Additionally, human users must resolve the captcha for verification in multiple steps.
AI agents need to be separated from human users
Separating AI agents from human users is not yet part of the Internet toolset, nor does it create friction with humans. According to A16Z, blockchain can solve this problem in several approaches. A key feature is to create an immutable and tamper-proof identity that can be used across platforms.
In the past, on-chain projects have attempted to create passport-like identities. For the first time, these identities have a use case for AI agents on social media.
AI can copy and fake voice messages, faces, writing styles, videos, images, and even entire social media presences. A single attacker can also launch multiple social media participants at a small additional cost.
Decentralized identity proofing makes it impossible to impersonate multiple personalities without proof of the original identity. Blockchains can increase costs for attackers by limiting the supply of generated IDs, or block attackers altogether due to lack of proof of humanity.
Similar to Worldcoin's technology, the chain can be used to prove human uniqueness. A16Z pointed out that identity can be a true scarcity.
Blockchain allows agents to have their own internet
Agents showed that they could theoretically use the Internet themselves. Projects like Moltbook demonstrate the potential use of agents, especially in building social media-like communications. As a cryptopolitan reportedincorporating AI agents requires additional risk controls to prevent exploits and fraud.
According to A16Z, agents may also have their own ID to authenticate themselves across the platform. An on-chain identity layer, perhaps based on tokens or NFTs, could give agents a unique universal passport. IDs can also include data about capabilities, privileges, and payments, and can be verified from multiple points on the Internet.
ID prevents agent impersonation and enables the creation of more useful AI assistants.
Additionally, blockchain is already being built as a near-ideal environment for AI agents. On-chain environments become more meaningful as more attention is focused on agent transactions and payments on behalf of humans.
Existing on-chain tools already enable near-zero-cost transactions, fast payments, micropayments, and AI-native payments such as smart contracts. Blockchain has turned into a machine-native place where value can be captured beyond the reach of humans.
AI adds another layer to blockchain automation and can go beyond simple bots for specific tasks.
