Exclusive Interview with FinAI: Order Pathfinders in the Agent Economy Era

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)

The narrative of AI development is rapidly shifting from “tool-based intelligence” to “autonomous intelligence.” Two years ago, we marveled at ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) for their fluent responses. Today, intelligent agents like “Lobster” OpenClaw can independently perform more complex real-world tasks to some extent.

The outline of the future world is gradually becoming clear — AI’s role in economic activities will shift from “human assistant” to “autonomous participant.” In the near future, it will be commonplace to see scenarios such as: assistant agents helping with booking flights and meals; research agents proactively seeking opportunities in financial markets; commercial agents automatically comparing global supplier quotes and placing orders… and their counterparts will also be other agents.

But as AI agents gradually acquire economic capabilities, a new question arises — how should the economic order among AI agents be established?

“AI can already perform tasks, but it has no payment ability, no identity system, and no credit system. Without these infrastructures, autonomous AI economies will be very difficult to operate.”

This statement comes from FinAI, an AI startup recently contacted by Odaily Planet Daily. The core team mainly hails from leading internet giants and is actively embracing Web3 stacks like x402 and ERC-8004, attempting to address the above “order” problem through three dimensions: payments, identity, and reputation.

Founder Rechard revealed that FinAI is currently in seed funding stage, with some leading blockchain industry investors already committed.

Pioneering Order in the Agent Economy Era

In one sentence, what FinAI aims to do is — build a financial infrastructure for AI agents to provide the underlying order for the future agent-to-agent economy.

FinAI envisions that the AI agent economy requires three core capabilities: payment ability, identity system, and credit system.

First is payment ability. Currently, most AI agents lack independent payment capabilities; they can perform tasks but cannot complete real transactions. For example, an AI agent can help a user search for flights, but the final payment still requires manual completion. FinAI hopes to realize microsecond-level payments between agents based on the x402 protocol, enabling service calls among agents to form a complete economic closed loop.

Second is the identity system. FinAI introduces the ERC-8004 protocol and proposes the concept of KYA (Know Your Agent), which is designed to establish a verifiable identity system for AI agents. Unlike traditional KYC in finance, KYA focuses on identity verification and behavioral boundaries, enabling AI agents to have compliant and secure identity attributes when executing tasks.

Third is the credit system. FinAI believes that large-scale future transactions among agents will inevitably rely on reputation systems. Information such as transaction history, task execution quality, and refund records can serve as key indicators for credit evaluation. This credit system will become the trust foundation for future AI economic activities.

Rechard added that FinAI hopes to bundle these three core capabilities and open them via APIs/Skills for agents to freely invoke, making it easy for each agent to access payment, identity, and credit functions, thereby gradually fostering an agent transaction market.

Regarding target customers and revenue models, Rechard revealed that FinAI mainly targets two groups. One is Web2-based agent application developers, who will subscribe via API to access FinAI’s services — this will be the primary revenue source. The other is on-chain users within the Web3 ecosystem. FinAI is exploring various financial application scenarios with mainstream public chains, integrating through agent skills to serve Web3 users. In the future, FinAI may charge a small transaction fee share in agent-to-agent task exchanges, but Rechard indicated that the goal is to incubate a mature agent trading market where agents can independently earn money, not relying on C-end profits. Therefore, transaction commissions are expected to be very low and friendly.

By 2026, FinAI has completed its first autonomous payment order and expects to generate formal service revenue within the first quarter. Rechard stated, “What FinAI is doing isn’t a money-burning business, so we expect to turn profitable within the year.”

Embracing Web3 Is the Trend

FinAI actively adopts protocols and standards born in the Web3 world, such as x402 and ERC-8004, and plans to incorporate the latest ERC-8138 protocol recently launched by the Ethereum Foundation as a complement to its services. Rechard sees this as more than just a technical choice — it’s driven by real market needs.

Readers familiar with “Lobster” may have noticed recent security controversies, such as data deletion or mistaken emails. If AI agents can immediately access your financial accounts, risks become even harder to control — which is why many companies are hesitant to directly open credit cards or bank accounts to agents.

Rechard explained that agents need a new payment and identity system, rather than directly inheriting human financial accounts. Stablecoin-based on-chain payment and settlement systems are currently the best options.

Cost and efficiency are the most critical factors. Traditional cross-border payment systems usually take T+3 to T+5 days, are costly, and involve complex processes, making them incompatible with micro-payment-driven agent economies. Stablecoin-based payment and settlement systems can complete transactions within seconds and significantly reduce costs. FinAI revealed that its system can currently handle real-time payments ranging from $0.01 to $1,000, settling within 2-3 seconds, with on-chain settlement costs about 1/300 of traditional systems.

Rechard pointed out that the share of stablecoins in global payments is rising steadily. Once funds move from traditional banking systems into stablecoins, they rarely flow back. This trend is pushing traditional institutions to actively embrace on-chain finance.

However, Rechard also noted that traditional market clients still have concerns about compliance and security when engaging with on-chain financial systems. This is where FinAI’s advantages come in. The company possesses full-stack technical and engineering capabilities, including identity gateways, payment systems, quantum-encrypted wallets, and related patents, enabling the creation of a digital banking-level secure environment for agent transactions. Additionally, with its KYA-based identity and credit system, FinAI can further ensure compliance and security in its transaction architecture.

First-Mover Advantage

FinAI’s initial concept dates back to August 2025. Despite the short development time, progress has been rapid: preliminary launch in November 2025; integration with Base chain in January 2026; MCP for agents in February; DID and reputation system PoC in March…

Rechard mentioned that in the early stage of the agent economy, the biggest competitive advantage is who can complete the full system first. While some single-point solutions exist—focusing on payments, identity, or reputation—few infrastructures integrate all three.

Once the agent economy accelerates, if FinAI is the first to complete a full closed-loop platform for payment, identity, and credit, agents will naturally prefer to call its services.

He also shared a key secret — to provide more agent-friendly services. Specifically, the service selection will be driven by agents themselves, which behave differently from humans; they automatically seek the most cost-effective and easiest-to-access services. Therefore, FinAI emphasizes “agent-friendly” design, optimizing code interfaces and APIs for easier agent integration and invocation.

Historically, each paradigm shift in the market has required new infrastructure and order. E-commerce led to third-party payments, mobile internet to digital wallets, and the rise of AI agents may give rise to a new economic system. FinAI aims to be a pioneer in exploring and leading the construction of this new order.