Connect with us

Tech

NEAR Protocol Clarifies Distinction Between Agent Economy and Agentic Payments

Published

4 hours ago

on

NEAR Protocol has issued a terminology clarification to better define the scope of its AI infrastructure, distinguishing between the broad concept of an “agent economy” and the narrower function of “agentic payments.”https://twitter.com/NEARProtocol/status/2079235069818945745

The protocol’s core message, shared via official social channels, suggests that the “agent economy” represents a shift in market structure that is significantly larger in scale than the mere transactional layer of automated payments.

According to NEAR, while agentic payments focus on the ability of AI to send and receive value, the agent economy refers to the total orchestration of commercial relationships by autonomous software. The protocol argues that most modern commercial interactions are essentially “transactions waiting for an agent” to manage them.

The clarification identifies three primary pillars that define this emerging category:

  • Machine-negotiated services: Autonomous software units determining the terms of service delivery without direct human intervention.
  • Agent-to-agent contracting: The creation of digital agreements where AI agents hire and pay other agents to fulfill specific tasks within a value chain.
  • Continuous micro-settlement: The high-frequency exchange of value in increments too small or frequent for traditional financial systems to process efficiently.

Infrastructure for AI Agents

The distinction comes as NEAR positions its sharded blockchain architecture, known as Nightshade, as a foundation for “user-owned AI.” By integrating features like the NEAR Agent Market, the protocol aims to provide an environment where AI agents can operate with cryptographic identity and verifiable authority.

Under this framework, blockchain provides the “financial guardrails” necessary for agents to transact safely. This includes establishing reputation systems where agents can build portable transaction histories, which other software counterparts use to evaluate risk or refuse interactions.

NEAR suggests that this model will compress existing value chains by removing human-centric delays. Rather than merely making current payment volumes cheaper, the protocol anticipates that the shift toward machine commerce will lead to a transaction volume that dwarfs existing consumer systems, driven by agents consuming both compute and settlement resources simultaneously.

The post NEAR Protocol Clarifies Distinction Between Agent Economy and Agentic Payments appeared first on The Cryptocurrency Post.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Tech

Ritual Unveils Infrastructure for Verifiable On-Chain AI Agents Targeting Portfolio and DAO Management

Published

1 day ago

on

July 21, 2026

By

Ritual has introduced a framework aimed at running verifiable AI inference and autonomous agents directly on blockchain networks, according to an official update from the project. The announcement outlines a development stack designed to allow developers to deploy machine-learning models for tasks such as protocol risk monitoring, portfolio management, and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governance, while maintaining transparent on-chain records for model outputs.

According to the official introduction from Ritual, the architecture centers on a system the project calls Infernet. Rather than relying on opaque, off-chain model calls, the infrastructure is built to generate on-chain verification records for each inference. This approach is intended to address a recurring constraint in Web3 AI workflows: the difficulty of auditing why an autonomous agent executed a specific transaction or governance action. By anchoring inference results to the chain, the project states that decisions made by these agents can be traced back to specific data inputs and model configurations.

The announced use cases focus on areas where automated decision-making intersects with capital allocation or protocol authority. For portfolio management, the system could support agents that monitor market conditions and execute adjustments based on predefined rules, with each action carrying a verifiable execution record. In DAO environments, the framework could enable agents that assist with proposal analysis or automated voting, where the underlying reasoning remains publicly auditable. The project also highlighted protocol risk monitoring as a primary deployment target.

Ritual positions the framework as an infrastructure layer rather than a standalone consumer application. The system is intended to provide developers with the tools required to integrate verifiable inference into existing smart contracts or custom agent workflows. The available source material does not specify network coverage, deployment fees, or the current scope of live integrations, and broader ecosystem adoption remains unverified. The update establishes a technical pathway for verifiable AI agent activity, but exact deployment timelines and developer accessibility parameters require additional confirmation.

The post Ritual Unveils Infrastructure for Verifiable On-Chain AI Agents Targeting Portfolio and DAO Management appeared first on The Cryptocurrency Post.

Continue Reading

Blockchain

JasmyCoin (JASMY) Builds Quietly as JasmyChain L2 Launch and 1,500% Whale Surge Signal a Structural Shift

Published

4 days ago

on

July 18, 2026

By

JasmyCoin has been one of crypto’s more patient stories. The token is trading around $0.0045 — down 99.9% from its all-time high of $4.79, but sitting well above its all-time low of $0.0028 — with a market cap of approximately $222 million and nearly 49.5 billion tokens in circulation. JASMY ranks #117 on CoinMarketCap, making it one of the more substantive projects by market cap in the IoT and data privacy category despite a price chart that would discourage most investors at first glance.

What’s changed in 2026 isn’t the price. It’s the protocol’s architecture — and for a project that has spent five years building quietly, the shift from a simple ERC-20 data token to the native gas asset of a full Layer 2 blockchain is a genuine structural upgrade.

JasmyChain: From Data Token to Infrastructure Gas

The most significant development in JASMY’s recent history is the launch of JasmyChain — an Ethereum Layer 2 built on Arbitrum Orbit technology with JASMY as its native gas token. The chain is operational in 2026 and prioritizes non-financial use cases that fit Jasmy Corporation’s original thesis: AI-driven data monetization, ESG data tracking, and integration with Japan’s evolving digital identity framework.

The shift matters for the token’s value proposition in a specific way. As an ERC-20 token, JASMY’s demand was tied to data payments within the Jasmy ecosystem — functional but limited in scope. As the native gas token of a full L2 blockchain, every transaction processed on JasmyChain requires JASMY for execution fees — a structural demand sink that scales with network activity rather than remaining static.

JasmyChain features decentralized storage via IPFS and identity management through the Secure Knowledge Communicator — a tool that gives individuals verifiable control over their personal data across connected IoT devices. That IoT-identity stack is what Jasmy has been building toward since its 2021 founding by former Sony executives Kazumasa Sato and Kunitake Ando.

The 1,500% Whale Surge That Raised Eyebrows

On-chain data from Santiment revealed a 1,500% week-over-week jump in large JASMY transactions — transfers exceeding $100,000 — in May 2026, following a 950% spike in April. Numbers of that magnitude in large-holder activity typically precede significant price moves, though whether they signal accumulation or distribution isn’t immediately clear from the data alone.

What followed was a 16% single-day surge on June 15 with volume jumping 175% to $28.5 million — a move that broke JASMY above a multi-week descending channel and triggered a MACD bullish crossover on the daily chart. The breakout faced immediate resistance in the $0.0054 to $0.0056 range, a dense liquidity zone that has capped subsequent recovery attempts.

The technical picture heading into mid-July is mixed. The 50-day moving average on the four-hour chart is rising, suggesting improving short-term momentum. The daily and weekly 200-day moving averages are both falling, indicating the longer-term trend remains structurally weak. The $0.0040 level is the line that matters most — a weekly close below that zone would invalidate the accumulation thesis that the whale activity data had been pointing toward.

The Japan Digital Identity Angle

Jasmy’s positioning within Japan’s digital identity framework is the most underappreciated aspect of the project’s longer-term case. Japan has been aggressively building out its digital infrastructure over the past few years, and Jasmy’s Secure Knowledge Communicator provides exactly the kind of privacy-preserving identity verification layer that regulatory frameworks increasingly require.

A Japanese blockchain project with former Sony leadership, regulatory-aligned product design, and a functioning L2 that uses JASMY as gas sits in a specific category that very few projects occupy — domestically credible, institutionally connected, and building for regulated real-world adoption rather than DeFi speculation. The gap between that description and a $222 million market cap is either a valuation opportunity or a signal that the adoption cycle is moving slower than the team had hoped.

JasmyChain’s ability to attract dApps and real-world developers is what closes that gap. The infrastructure is live. The demand catalyst depends entirely on what gets built on top of it.

Continue Reading

Tech

Sui Implements Gasless Stablecoin Transfers to Streamline Payments

Published

5 days ago

on

July 17, 2026

By

The Sui network has officially introduced gasless stablecoin transfers, a technical update aimed at removing one of the primary friction points for digital payments. The feature allows users to send stablecoins without holding the network’s native SUI token to cover transaction fees.

A demonstration of the new flow was shared by the @SuiNetwork official account on X, highlighting a comparison between Sui’s streamlined process and the multi-step “retry” cycles often required on other blockchains when gas fees fluctuate or are insufficient. The update is part of a broader infrastructure push to position the network as a viable alternative for high-volume payment applications.

Infrastructure for the “Payments Network” Narrative

The transition to gasless transfers addresses a long-standing barrier in the stablecoin market: the requirement for users to manage secondary asset balances just to move liquidity. By abstracting these costs, Sui aims to provide an experience closer to traditional fintech applications while maintaining on-chain settlement.

According to the Sui Foundation in an official blog post, this capability is a core component of the “Sui Stack,” a developer-focused rollout intended to evolve the Layer-1 into a more comprehensive platform. The network’s ability to process transactions in parallel serves as the underlying technical foundation for maintaining low latency during these transfers.

Market Response and Observed Activity

While the feature targets retail and payment adoption, early data suggests significant participation from automated systems. Secondary reports indicate that within the first five days of the launch, transfer volumes reached approximately $65 billion. Analysts have noted that a portion of this initial activity likely originated from arbitrage bots testing the network’s high throughput capabilities under the new fee structure.

The broader ecosystem has shown steady liquidity growth alongside these technical updates. Total Value Locked (TVL) on the network has trended upward, and stablecoin capitalization—primarily led by USDC—has recently reached approximately $460 million. This liquidity provides the necessary backbone for the gasless feature to function across decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and peer-to-peer transfers.

Despite the official rollout and the confirmed functionality of the gasless flow, long-term adoption metrics remain pending. The available data captures an initial surge in activity, but it remains unclear how much of this volume will translate into sustained organic usage once the novelty and early testing phases conclude. For now, the development marks a shift in Sui’s strategy to compete for the stablecoin payment sector by prioritizing user experience over traditional fee models.

The post Sui Implements Gasless Stablecoin Transfers to Streamline Payments appeared first on The Cryptocurrency Post.

Continue Reading

Trending