The New Tech Stack: AI Agents, Blockchain, and Crypto Payments

TL;DR The next tech stack: natural language as UI, AI agents as execution, blockchain as database, crypto as payments. This gives agents the power to act autonomously, with proof they did what they claimed. Projects like NEAR Protocol are already building this with TEEs and Shade Agents.

The Stack

Four layers. Each one matters.

UI: Natural Language. You don't click buttons. You don't fill forms. You speak. You type what you want. The AI understands intent, not syntax.

Execution: Agentic. AI agents don't just respond. They act. They browse the web, call APIs, negotiate with other agents, and complete multi-step tasks without you babysitting every click.

Database: Blockchain. Every action gets recorded on an immutable ledger. No one can fake what happened. Not the agent. Not the platform. Not you.

Payments: Crypto. Agents need to spend money to get things done. Crypto lets them move value autonomously, across borders, without bank hours or approval queues.

The result? You speak transactions into existence. Effortless, transparent, and fundamentally secure.

Why This Combination

Two problems need solving: capability and trust.

Capability

AI agents can now act on the live internet. They can book flights, compare prices, fill out applications, and coordinate with services. The barrier between "AI assistant" and "AI that gets things done" has collapsed.

But agents need to pay for things. Traditional payment rails don't work here. You can't give an AI agent your credit card and let it loose. Banks flag automated transactions. Fraud detection blocks legitimate agent activity. International transfers take days.

Crypto solves this. Agents hold wallets. They sign transactions. They pay for services in milliseconds, anywhere in the world. No permission needed.

Trust

Here's the problem: how do you know what an agent actually did?

An agent says it booked you the cheapest flight. Did it? Or did it pick the option with the highest affiliate commission? An agent claims it compared 50 vendors. Did it check 50, or stop at 3?

You can't audit a black box.

Blockchain fixes this. Every agent action gets recorded. Every API call, every comparison, every decision point. The ledger is immutable. The agent can't rewrite history to cover mistakes or hide conflicts of interest.

This isn't about cryptocurrency ideology. It's about proof. Verifiable, tamper-resistant proof of what happened.

Who's Building This Now

This isn't theoretical. Real projects are shipping real infrastructure.

NEAR Protocol and TEEs

NEAR Protocol is building AI infrastructure with Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). A TEE is a secure area in a hardware processor that guarantees code and data are not accessible to anyone, not even the machine operator.

NEAR's TEE SDK, built with Phala Network, combines NVIDIA GPU TEE and Intel TDX technologies. The result: AI agents run in encrypted, isolated environments with cryptographic proof that computations executed as intended.

Why does this matter? Your prompts, model weights, and outputs stay hidden from the infrastructure. Each inference is signed to prove it ran in a genuine, locked-down enclave. Privacy and integrity without sacrificing speed.

NEAR's AI TEE went live on Brave Browser in November 2024, enabling privacy-focused AI computations for millions of users.

Shade Agents

NEAR introduced Shade Agents in February 2025. These are truly autonomous AI agents that combine TEE verifiability with decentralized key management.

How they work:

• A Worker Agent runs the core logic inside a TEE
• The agent registers with a smart contract on NEAR
• It can then sign transactions for other blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana using NEAR's Chain Signatures

Real use cases already running:

• DeFi yield optimization: Agents manage portfolios and optimize yields across protocols
• DAO governance: Agents participate in governance decisions based on predefined rules
• Cross-border payments: Agents handle micro-payments without human approval at each step
• Tax and bill automation: Agents that pay bills or complete tax paperwork with better security than current tools

For developers, this means building apps where agents manage assets, make decisions, and interact with smart contracts on any chain. For users, it means verifiable automation without reviewing every transaction or handing keys to a third party.

AITP: How Agents Talk to Each Other

NEAR launched AITP (Agent Interaction and Transaction Protocol) to enable the "Internet of Agents." It's a universal way for agents to communicate and transact, in crypto or fiat.

Imagine your personal agent negotiating with a merchant's agent. They agree on price, terms, and delivery. They execute the transaction. All without you clicking anything. AITP makes this possible.

x402 Protocol

Coinbase launched the x402 protocol in partnership with AWS, Circle, Anthropic, and NEAR Protocol. This lets AI agents achieve economic autonomy by transacting independently, without human intervention.

No more pre-paid credits. No API keys managed by humans. Agents access paid resources in real-time and pay for what they use.

This is how subscription models die. AI agents will optimize for low fees. Micropayments will replace recurring subscriptions.

Power With Proof

The combination unlocks something new: agents that can act independently but remain accountable.

Power: Agents can browse, negotiate, transact, and coordinate without human intervention at every step.

Proof: Every action leaves a trail that anyone can verify. Trust doesn't require faith. It requires receipts.

This matters as agents get more capable. The more autonomy you give them, the more you need assurance they're acting in your interest. TEEs and blockchain provide that assurance.

What This Looks Like

You wake up. You tell your agent: "Book me a flight to Tokyo next month. Find the best price across all airlines. Pay with my crypto wallet. Show me proof of the search."

The agent:

• Searches 40 airline sites inside a TEE (your data stays private)
• Logs every search to the blockchain
• Finds the optimal flight
• Pays via crypto using Chain Signatures
• Returns a receipt with verifiable proof of the comparison

You don't trust the agent's word. You trust the ledger.

The Shift

Old stack was GUI, server logic, SQL database, credit card rails. New stack is natural language, agentic execution, blockchain ledger, crypto payments. The old stack required you to operate the software. The new stack operates itself while you verify the results.

We're moving from "use tools" to "direct agents." The interface is conversation. The execution is autonomous. The record is permanent. The value transfer is instant.

Early Days, Real Progress

NEAR is targeting 1 million transactions per second by end of 2025. This isn't just about speed. It's about supporting AI agents, micropayments, and decentralized services at scale.

The pieces are coming together:

• TEEs provide private, verifiable compute
• Shade Agents enable true autonomy
• AITP lets agents communicate and transact
• Chain Signatures enable multi-chain operations
• x402 gives agents economic independence

This stack is emerging, not mature. But the direction is clear. Each piece solves a real problem.

The Bottom Line

The new tech stack isn't about any single technology. It's about what they enable together.

AI gives agents capability. Crypto gives agents economic power. Blockchain and TEEs give you proof of what they did.

You speak. Agents act. The ledger records. Value moves.

That's the future of getting things done.

Thoughts? Hit me up at [email protected]