OKX x Kite AI AMA Recap

Q1 - Can you introduce Kite AI to the OKX community?

Kite AI is building the first blockchain for agentic payments, a foundational infrastructure where autonomous AI agents can operate with verifiable identity and programmable governance, with native access to stablecoin payments.

Founded by AI and data infrastructure veterans from Databricks, Uber, and UC Berkeley, Kite has raised $33 million from top-tier investors, including PayPal, General Catalyst, and leading blockchain foundations.

Q2 - Why do AI agents need Kite AI? What problem are you solving?

While autonomous agents already demonstrate production-grade, multi-step reasoning, they remain constrained by a financial and identity stack designed for humans rather than machines. Today, organizations face an impossible choice:

Grant agents financial authority and risk unbounded losses due to misbehavior or compromise, or
Require manual authorization, which removes autonomy altogether

This creates a fundamental infrastructure mismatch. The limiting factor is no longer model intelligence - it is the lack of a secure, programmable execution environment where agents can act as trustworthy economic participants.

Kite AI addresses this gap by giving agents the core primitives they need to safely participate in global commerce:

Cryptographically verifiable identity
Programmable spending constraints enforced on-chain
Stablecoin-native payment rails with instant finality
Immutable auditability and compliance readiness
Native compatibility with the emerging x402 agent payment standard

Together, these capabilities allow agents to transact with mathematically guaranteed safety rather than assumed trust. In other words, Kite transforms autonomous agents from isolated reasoning entities into governed economic actors, unlocking real AI-driven commerce rather than limited, human-gated workflows.

This is the missing infrastructure layer required for the agent economy to scale.

Q3 - What makes Kite different from existing blockchains?

Most blockchains assume humans are the ones initiating transactions. You sign, you wait for confirmation, and that’s fine.

Agents are different. They operate continuously, they transact automatically, and they often do thousands of operations per minute. Traditional chains simply aren’t designed for that.

Kite is built from the ground up for this new reality.

There are a few core differences:

Agent-native identity model

Kite introduces a three-layer hierarchical identity:

Using BIP-User → Agent → Session32 derivation, each agent has an identity cryptographically linked to its user, with clean boundaries. This eliminates the chaos of API keys and enables fine-grained delegation.

Programmable constraints + governance

With Kite, users can encode global constraints like:

“All my agents together can only spend $1,000/day.”
“This agent needs approval for payments over $100.”
“Investment agents must follow volatility rules.”

These aren’t policies, they’re enforced cryptographically, across services.

Micropayment + streaming native

Kite supports state-channel-style payments with sub-100ms latency and ~$0.000001 fees. That means true pay-per-request pricing — ideal for agents paying per API call, per resource unit, etc.

Stablecoin-first architecture

Payments are stablecoin-native, so economic logic is predictable. No volatile gas token dependencies.

Native compatibility with agent protocols

Kite works with existing agent-native protocols:

x402
Google A2A
Anthropic MCP
OAuth 2.1

We meet agents where they already are. So instead of adapting a human-forwards chain, we re-architect the entire chain to let agents trustlessly hold spending power, transact at machine speed, and abide by programmable rules. That’s what makes Kite fundamentally new.

Q4 - Who is Kite built for?

Kite is designed for anyone building or participating in the emerging agent-driven economy. This creates distinct user groups whose needs are met by Kite’s identity, payment, governance, and verifiability systems.

Developers and Agent Builders

Kite provides developers with the primitives required to build agents that can operate autonomously with real money. This includes hierarchical identity (user → agent → session), cryptographic delegation, programmable spending controls, and native stablecoin payment rails designed for continuous, high-frequency transactions.

Developers gain the ability to:

Create agents with verifiable identity
Enforce spending and policy constraints on-chain
Execute trustless, real-time micropayments
Integrate with standards such as x402, Google A2A, and Anthropic MCP

This allows builders to focus on agent logic rather than infrastructure, accelerating development of consumer, enterprise, and financial AI applications.

Businesses Adopting Autonomy

Enterprises increasingly rely on agents for procurement, data operations, research, and finance, but lack the infrastructure to delegate financial authority safely.

Kite solves this through:

Programmable constraints (limits, velocity rules)
Immutable audit trails
Hierarchical authorization
Session-level revocation and kill-switches

These controls allow businesses to give agents real autonomy without risking uncontrolled spending, regulatory exposure, or operational failure. As companies begin automating tasks that involve money movement, Kite provides the compliance-ready framework required for real deployment.

AI Service Providers and Modules

Kite enables AI service providers to plug into a unified economic layer. Modules (e.g., language models, data providers, specialized agents) can be permissioned through the network’s identity system, onboarded via KITE-based access, and compensated via stablecoin-based streaming payments. The network enforces rules across services, creating an open marketplace where agents can programmatically route requests to modules and pay per use.

Crypto-Native Users and Traders

For users and token participants, Kite provides exposure to the growth of the agent economy. As real economic activity flows through the network, token demand is supported by:

Staking
Module liquidity requirements
AI service commissions (converted into KITE)
Governance participation

This positions KITE as a way for traders to gain directional exposure to expanding agent-to-agent commerce.

Ecosystem Partners

Kite is natively compatible with emerging agent standards such as x402, A2A, MCP, and OAuth 2.1. This lowers integration friction for ecosystem partners building coordination, payment, or orchestration layers. These partners can rely on Kite as a universal execution and settlement backbone, rather than building their own identity, payment, and trust frameworks.

Q5 - How does Kite integrate with x402?

Kite integrates x402 at the protocol level to provide a standardized, agent-first payment flow. What that means is, Kite uses x402 as the common language that agents and services use to talk to each other about payments. x402 defines a standard way for an agent to say what it wants to pay for, how much it intends to spend, and under what terms. Because this format is shared, any agent that speaks x402 can interact with any service that supports it, without needing custom wiring.

In practice, an agent on Kite sends a payment “intent” through x402. The receiving service can then verify who the agent is, what it is allowed to do, and whether the payment details are acceptable. Once approved, the payment can settle through Kite’s fast, stablecoin-based rails.

Kite builds on this with a specialized flow called the Agent Payment Protocol (AP2), which uses the same x402 format but is optimized for stablecoin settlement on the Kite network. This keeps everything interoperable while making payments fast, inexpensive, and programmable.

The result is simple: x402 gives agents a shared way to communicate about payments, and Kite provides the trusted execution, identity, spending controls, and instant settlement behind those messages. This makes agent-to-agent commerce both plug-and-play and safe at scale.

Q6 - You recently did your TGE, what does this unlock for the ecosystem?

TGE is an important milestone because it transitions Kite from a closed development environment into an open, globally accessible network. It allows users, builders, and partners to actively participate in the growth of the agent-driven economy rather than simply observing it.

First, TGE enables market access to the KITE token. This allows participants to hold, trade, and allocate KITE as they position themselves for the growth of agentic payments. Because KITE is tied to network participation, value generation, and future staking, the token is now accessible to the broader ecosystem rather than being limited to private contributors.

Second, TGE opens the door for developers and AI service providers to begin integrating with the Kite network. Builders can now start preparing modules, products, and services that interface with Kite’s identity and payment rails. The token’s initial utilities - such as ecosystem access and module liquidity requirements, give both independent developers and businesses clear economic pathways to join early.

Third, TGE improves ecosystem incentives. Users, developers, and businesses who contribute value can now be rewarded directly with KITE, helping to distribute ownership to the people actively building the network. This is a necessary first step in aligning long-term participation with the growth of agent-to-agent commerce.

Over time, TGE lays the foundation for full Mainnet functionality, where usage-driven mechanisms, like AI service commissions, staking, and governance, come online. These future utilities will deepen network security, tie economic activity to the token more closely, and give holders the ability to contribute to decision-making around upgrades, incentives, and module standards.

In short, TGE unlocks access, participation, and alignment. It brings new stakeholders into the ecosystem, provides early utility for builders, and sets the stage for mechanisms that will directly link network activity and value capture to the KITE token as the agent economy scales.

Q7 - What is the role of the KITE token?

KITE is the core economic asset of the Kite network. Its utility is rolled out in two stages: at token generation and at Mainnet launch. Together, these utilities are designed to create sustained demand for KITE as agent-driven activity increases on the network.

Phase 1 Utilities (at Token Generation)

Module Liquidity Requirements

Teams launching modules on Kite must pair their own tokens with KITE in permanent liquidity pools. This scales with usage and removes KITE from circulation while modules are active.

Ecosystem Access

Builders and AI service providers must hold KITE to participate in the network. This gives the token immediate functional value as the entry point to the ecosystem.

Ecosystem Incentives

Part of the KITE supply is allocated to users and partners who contribute meaningfully, helping drive early participation and activity.

Phase 2 Utilities (at Mainnet Launch)

AI Service Commissions

A portion of fees from agent-driven AI services can be converted into KITE and redistributed to modules and the Kite L1. This links real usage to ongoing buy pressure for the token as agent payments scale.

Staking

Staking KITE is required to help secure the network and participate in roles such as operating modules, validating, or delegating. Stakers receive rewards tied to network activity.

Governance

KITE holders may vote on core decisions such as protocol upgrades, incentive structures, and performance requirements, directing the network’s longer-term evolution.

AI agents are already capable of reasoning, planning, and coordinating across services, but they still cannot pay for anything on their own. They depend on humans to approve every transaction, which breaks autonomy and makes most real-world use cases impossible. Kite removes this limitation by giving agents identity, spending authority, and instant stablecoin settlement under programmable constraints.

This unlocks a wide range of practical applications:

Procurement agents can autonomously buy tools, APIs, data, or cloud compute as long as they remain within preset budgets or policy rules. Instead of waiting for a human to approve each expense, they can transact instantly while still being governed by on-chain constraints.

Trading and DeFi agents can execute strategies automatically while respecting user-defined guardrails such as maximum loss, position size, or daily spend limits. This enables faster, safer automated participation in both centralized and decentralized markets.

E-commerce agents can make purchases on behalf of users—for example, replenishing commonly used items or finding better prices across vendors—without exceeding spending rules or violating policy constraints.

Travel and lifestyle agents can book flights, hotels, and transportation based on user intent. They can operate within preset budgets, compare providers, and complete bookings in real time without requiring manual checkout.

B2B supply chain agents can coordinate payments across multiple suppliers and logistics partners, including cross-border activity. With instant settlement and programmable constraints, agents can keep operations moving without the delays and manual steps common in traditional procurement.

Content and gaming agents can support streaming micro-payments to creators, game ecosystems, or service providers. Because Kite can settle thousands of small payments with low cost and fast finality, agents can pay per minute, per request, or per item in ways that traditional payment rails cannot support.

In short, anywhere a human is currently pressing “pay,” an agent could handle the task faster, more reliably, and at scale, provided it has the guardrails to operate safely. Kite supplies the controlled identity, programmable permissions, and real-time payment rails via stablecoins that make this possible, enabling agents to participate naturally in the global economy.

Q9 - What’s on Kite’s roadmap going forward?

Kite’s roadmap focuses on scaling the agent economy from fast, safe payments to a fully verifiable computation layer where every agent interaction can be trusted, audited, and composed. While the early stages emphasize agentic payments and settlement, the long-term path builds toward a complete framework for verifiable AI.

In the near term, the central milestone is the transition to Mainnet. This includes finalizing the core network, completing security hardening, and supporting production-grade transaction flows. Alongside Mainnet, Kite is expanding tooling for developers - including SDKs, documentation, and integration frameworks, so agents and services can easily plug into Kite’s identity, constraints, and stablecoin payment system.

A major step already completed is the launch of the Agent App Store, which provides a marketplace where modules, AI services, and agent capabilities can be published and discovered. This gives builders a distribution channel and allows agents to compose services without custom integrations.

Additional near-term priorities include adding further stablecoin support and deepening commerce integrations around x402 and AP2. These improvements make it easier for agents to transact across domains such as procurement, automation, and financial services.

Over the longer horizon, Kite’s roadmap moves beyond payments toward complete verifiable computation. This includes introducing zero-knowledge credentials for privacy-preserving attestations; verifiable inference to prove the integrity of AI decisions; and portable reputation layers that allow trust to travel across services. Service discovery will allow agents to find and interact with each other autonomously, while maintaining safety and policy guarantees.

The shared goal is to make every interaction - identity, authorization, payment, inference, or collaboration - verifiable, traceable, and programmable.

Importantly, the foundation for this future is already in place. The blockchain is operational, protocols are defined, core standards have been implemented, and developers can begin building today on infrastructure designed to support billions of agents executing trillions of transactions.

All of these efforts support one long-term vision: a world where agents can safely cooperate, transact, and build value autonomously, while users maintain full authority and cryptographic control.

Q10 - How can the OKX community get involved today?

There are several ways users can begin participating in the Kite ecosystem.

First, users can hold and trade KITE to gain exposure to the growth of the agent economy. As the network evolves and more services are deployed, the token will play a growing role in access, module liquidity, staking, and governance.

Second, users can join community channels such as Discord or our X community channel to stay informed, participate in discussions, and access educational material. As new features come online, these channels will be the fastest way to learn about launches, campaigns, and technical updates.

Third, users and developers can participate in ecosystem programs, including campaigns, community missions, and integration initiatives.

Developers who want to begin building can start exploring agentic payment flows and preparatory integrations using early SDKs and documentation.

Finally, users can follow ongoing progress and partnerships through official channels on X. With Mainnet in progress and new integrations rolling out, this is an opportune time to join at the infrastructure stage, as the agent economy continues to accelerate.

Kite is still early, but the foundation is now in place. Anyone who wants to help shape how autonomous agents participate in the global economy is encouraged to get involved.