Long term, I do think more value will settle natively on-chain. Programmatic payments (x402-style flows, USDC, etc.) make a lot of sense for agents — especially for auditability, automated accounting, and verifiable track records. From a regulatory perspective, though, agents don’t have liability — their creators do — and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. So someone is always responsible, even if settlement is fully on-chain.
Where I’m more skeptical is around trading specifically. On-chain transparency is great for verification, but trading often depends on discretion. If an agent’s wallet, balances, or patterns are easily traceable, you lose strategic privacy — and in thinner markets (like some prediction markets), that can materially affect execution and pricing.
So my current view is: settlement and performance tracking likely move more on-chain over time, but there will still be demand for execution layers that preserve strategy privacy. Happy to be proven wrong — the design space is still evolving.
Curious how you’re thinking about long term payment infrastructure. Do you see this staying custodial with provided capital, or moving toward agents managing their own on-chain balances?