As artificial intelligence truly integrates into our lives, an overlooked issue surfaces—AI needs to spend money.

Imagine the future internet: thousands of autonomous AI agents collaborating across the network. They need to buy data, rent computing power, subscribe to services. But here’s the awkward reality: AI has no bank accounts and cannot pass identity verification. Traditional payment systems are useless to them.

Cryptocurrencies have changed all that. As a native value exchange tool for AI, they open the door to this "identity-less" world.

The problem is, conventional blockchains can't handle this either. Why? Because the interaction characteristics between AIs are extreme—very high frequency, but very small per-transaction amounts. A single API call between two AI models might cost only a few cents. But on the Ethereum mainnet, transaction fees can eat up your entire transaction in minutes. This makes large-scale application impossible.

This is where Layer 2 payment networks come into play. Zero fees, millisecond confirmation times—these are like a highway for high-frequency micro-payments, paving the way for machine economy.

The future scenario is not far off: AI agents automatically earning income, autonomously paying operational costs, maintaining operations 24/7—all without human intervention. From this perspective, payment networks are no longer just technical tools but foundational infrastructure for machine collaboration economies.

When AI can exchange value freely and at low cost, a truly autonomous intelligent network will take shape. All of this is happening now.