On-Chain Economy: Past, Present, and Future

In 2014, before “Web3” was exclusively linked to blockchain and crypto assets, blockchain was simply blockchain itself. People were deeply fascinated by the untapped potential unlocked by smart contracts.

Our early vision of on-chain economy eventually coalesced into the concept of Smart Economy. We envisioned a decentralized network capable of autonomously managing tasks, with smart contracts serving as the key to unlock unprecedented possibilities for economic collaboration.

As we rapidly enter the third decade of the 21st century, the current Web3 ecosystem is thriving, with decentralized finance (DeFi) as its core driver. Stablecoins have become the mainstream global settlement method, breaking down regional barriers; PayFi is penetrating daily life. Regardless of how deeply people understand it, crypto assets have profoundly reshaped public perceptions of finance.

Beneath these surface developments, the most profound structural advancement is a leap in financial efficiency.

Meanwhile, artificial intelligence—long familiar yet largely conceptual—has finally become part of everyday reality over the past two years. Driven by the continuous emergence and iteration of large language models, AI is deeply integrated into our work and lives.

For most people, AI is a productivity tool: designers save time, content creators automate copy editing, and programmers see a significant boost in coding efficiency.

But in our view, AI is far more than a productivity booster; it represents a new paradigm for financial efficiency.

Human labor always incurs costs, and attention is naturally limited. As AI enhances productivity per unit time, it simultaneously increases the value of attention outside of work hours. Therefore, we believe AI and blockchain are inherently compatible and should become the core components of the next generation on-chain economy.

Three Core Features of the Next-Generation On-Chain Economy

Minimized Human Involvement: In on-chain economic activities, humans will mainly serve as intent providers, while the system autonomously completes analysis, execution, and feedback loops based on those intents. Take DeFi as an example: the so-called “composability” initially required users to invest significant effort in verifying strategy combinations; in the new on-chain economy, AI will autonomously perform reasoning and planning.

Trustless Operation: Asset security is fundamental to usability. In the Web3 space, security issues have always loomed like the Sword of Damocles. The next-generation economy must thoroughly eliminate user security concerns and create truly trustless systems.

Maximum Efficiency: As mentioned earlier, every technological revolution is accompanied by a leap in efficiency. Web3 has already significantly surpassed traditional finance in transaction and settlement efficiency, but there remains enormous potential in capital utilization. Deep integration with AI will elevate capital efficiency to unprecedented levels.

Core Components Supporting These Structural Features

Rapidly evolving large AI models (new architectures and open-source models emerging almost daily)

AI agents centered on intent, accurately interpreting and executing user goals

AI agent networks enabling communication and collaboration among agents, forming cooperative clusters

Privacy-preserving technologies (such as Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) / Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE)) to ensure data security without relying on centralized trust mechanisms

Security foundations to maximize asset protection (e.g., Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) and traceability verification)

Continuous monitoring systems to oversee economic activities, with self-diagnosis and self-correction capabilities

The synergy of these elements will give rise to a truly organic, evolvable, and self-driving on-chain economy — which we define as the genuine “Intelligent Sensory Economy.”

All of this is far more than building a faster system or rearranging tool combinations.

On-chain economy has never been just about stacking technologies. More precisely, it is a collective narrative about value creation, distribution, and perception—centered on collaboration, order, and consensus.

With the deep integration of AI agents, AI is no longer merely an external efficiency tool but becomes an intrinsic structural component—possessing intent, logic, preferences, and even goals.

This structural transformation is far more profound than technological progress itself. We are transitioning from an on-chain system centered on human activity to a network driven by collaborative intelligence.

As a result, the economy is no longer just a combination of rules and incentives but begins to exhibit coherent, life-like features: perceiving external data, internally responding, adjusting parameters, and reorganizing through pressure and iteration.

What we call the “Intelligent Sensory Economy” does not refer to the emergence of emotions or consciousness but to the gradual perfection of internal information-action feedback loops within the system. This means collaboration no longer depends on external orchestration but can naturally emerge from within the system itself. It marks a directional shift in the infrastructure of human civilization—from merely “governance-based economy” to “embedding intelligence into the economy.”

While we often discuss on-chain economy from the perspectives of structural design and financial efficiency, perhaps the real question worth reconsidering is: when a system possesses continuous autonomous learning, adaptation, and self-coordination capabilities, should we still simply define it as “economy”? Or is it evolving into a new form of life?