3 months ago
Web3 wasn’t designed for humans astatine scale; it was built for machines. Its complexity has constricted its adoption, but the “Post Web” stack is taking signifier with AI agents emerging arsenic autonomous economical actors.
Smart contracts, decentralized networks, and verifiable computation volition remain. But present they are being optimized for AI-driven execution, coordination, and intent-based automation.
The question isn’t whether it’s happening but however accelerated we request to adapt.
For the past decade, we person been beta-testing decentralized systems and applications. While millions of radical prosecute with blockchain networks, DeFi protocols, and decentralized applications (dApps), the world is that Web3 remains vastly underutilized.
Despite astir 10% of the satellite allegedly owning crypto, lone a fraction of these holders actively usage decentralized applications arsenic a existent alternate to Web2 oregon centralized platforms. This disconnect isn’t owed to a deficiency of capableness successful Web3 technology, but alternatively its usability challenges and inherent complexity.
In hindsight, Web3 was ne'er designed for quality users astatine scale. It was designed for machines.
Now, with AI agents emerging arsenic autonomous economical actors, the sleeping elephantine of Web3 functionality is waking up. The “Post Web” — a word we coined astatine Outlier Ventures — creates a satellite wherever agents execute tasks, negociate assets, and transact connected our behalf. Every constituent of the Web3 stack volition beryllium repurposed. Once hindered by complexity, the infrastructure built for a decentralized satellite is present ideally suited for an net optimized for machines.
AI agents volition not conscionable usage Web3. They volition unlock each of its potential.
The Giant Awakens
Web3 has been misunderstood. Many expected it to beryllium a much decentralized mentation of Web2, wherever users ain their assets, enactment successful governance, and interact with permissionless applications.
In practice, Web3 has revolutionized back-end systems. As yet, its exertion remains excessively analyzable for the mean idiosyncratic to handle. Smart contracts, self-custody, and bridging crossed chains, necessitate time, effort, and method knowing that astir radical simply don’t have.
This is wherever AI agents alteration everything. Unlike humans, agents thrive successful complexity. They tin process immense amounts of information, automate intricate workflows, and run seamlessly crossed decentralized networks. While quality users conflict with onboarding, agents tin straight integrate with astute contracts, optimize for efficiency, and execute transactions without friction.
For the archetypal time, Web3 volition person users who tin afloat leverage its capabilities. AI agents volition seamlessly interact with decentralized infrastructure, allowing Web3 to run astatine the standard it was ever meant to.
The Post Web Tech Stack: Built for Machines
Web3 has spent the past decennary gathering decentralized infrastructure without considering AI. With the emergence of autonomous AI agents, our reasoning astir this stack indispensable fundamentally change.
In the Post Web, wherever AI agents regenerate humans arsenic superior users, the stack undergoes 2 captious transformations:
Optimizing the existing Web3 stack for AI agents – Upgrading decentralized infrastructure to enactment machine-driven transactions, intent execution, and autonomous coordination.
Building retired a caller agentic furniture connected apical – A caller computational and coordination furniture for hosting, managing, and orchestrating AI agents that grip societal and economical enactment connected behalf of users.
In our broader work astatine Outlier Ventures connected the Post Web, we’ve examined this improvement successful greater detail. Put simply,, the Post Web stack consists of 3 halfway layers, each indispensable for enabling an net optimized for machines.
1) The Agentic Layer: AI arsenic the New Interface
In the Post Web, users won’t person to navigate wallets, exchanges, oregon dApps themselves; AI agents volition bash it for them. These agents enactment arsenic personalized integer intermediaries, executing transactions, managing assets, and making analyzable economical decisions.
For this to work, the Agentic Layer volition beryllium the span betwixt intent and execution. Users volition explicit intent-based, high-level goals and objectives, specified arsenic investing successful assets, booking travel, oregon negotiating contracts, and agents volition grip the rest.
Smart wallets volition germinate into sovereign individuality hubs, storing idiosyncratic data, assets, and permissions, allowing agents to enactment with precision. This displacement means that alternatively of relying connected centralized platforms, individuals volition delegate actions to sovereign AI, giving them implicit power portion eliminating the request for nonstop interactions with analyzable systems.
The agentic furniture is the largest green-field accidental for bold founders who person the tendency and quality to harvester probabilistic AI capabilities with deterministic astute contracts and DLT. There is simply a request for marketplaces, coordination layers, frameworks, and more, each of which request to beryllium developed and improved.
2) The Trust Layer: Smart Contracts & DLT arsenic the Backbone
If AI agents are to execute real-world tasks, they request deterministic, verifiable environments wherever transactions and agreements tin beryllium enforced without ambiguity. This is wherever blockchain and astute contracts go critical.
Today’s AI models run connected probabilistic logic. Based connected grooming data, they foretell the adjacent astir apt outcome. However, economical transactions necessitate certainty and enforceability: a slope transfer, ineligible contract, oregon commercialized indispensable beryllium executed with implicit finality.
Smart contracts supply this missing piece. They connection immutable, self-executing agreements, allowing AI agents to behaviour economical enactment with implicit transparency and verifiability. More importantly, decentralized ledgers guarantee that agent-driven transactions are secure, permissionless, and trust-minimized, preventing manipulation oregon cardinal power implicit integer economies.
In short, the Post Web cannot relation without the spot furniture of decentralized networks. Agents request verifiable execution environments, and Web3 provides precisely that.
The displacement is wide for those gathering successful Web3 today: Your infrastructure indispensable beryllium agent-friendly. Protocols that alteration composability, seamless execution, and verifiable information volition outperform those relying connected fragmented, manual processes.In short, the startup regularisation publication is evolving rapidly.
3) The Infrastructure Layer: Compute, Data & DePIN
AI agents don’t conscionable request astute contracts; they request resources. They necessitate computing power, storage, and entree to decentralized information networks to relation autonomously. This is wherever Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) travel into play.
DePIN provides on-demand computing, storage, and bandwidth, allowing agents to run astatine standard without relying connected centralized unreality providers. Instead of a fewer hyperscalers similar AWS oregon Google Cloud controlling AI compute, DePIN distributes these resources crossed permissionless networks, optimizing for cost, accessibility, and resilience.
This furniture ensures that AI agents aren’t conscionable participants successful integer economies. They are sovereign entities susceptible of operating without centralized gatekeepers. From decentralized GPU networks similar Akash and Render to permissionless information exchanges similar Ocean Protocol, the infrastructure for agentic autonomy is already forming.
Startups gathering successful the Post Web epoch indispensable see however their products integrate with decentralized compute and retention markets. AI-first applications volition request cheap, scalable, and permissionless infrastructure, and the projects that supply it volition go foundational to the caller economy.
Outside these 3 layers, determination are much granular components specified arsenic privacy-enhancing technologies, modularity, middleware, scaling mechanisms, and truthful on, which each broadly autumn nether 1 oregon much of these categories, which we sermon successful item successful our different work.
The Internet Is Being Rewritten
For decades, the Internet has been built astir quality interfaces, platforms, apps, and centralized gatekeepers that dictate however we interact with integer services. That epoch is ending.
The Post Web stack doesn’t conscionable amended Web3; it redefines it into a satellite wherever AI agents are the superior users. With an agentic furniture for execution, a spot furniture for verifiability, and a decentralized infrastructure furniture for standard and resilience, we are witnessing the emergence of an autonomous, machine-driven internet.
This isn’t the adjacent mentation of the Web; it’s the disappearance of the Web arsenic we cognize it. The question isn’t whether this displacement volition hap but whether you are gathering for it.
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