Kite (KITE)

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Overview

Kite (KITE) is a purpose-built Layer-1 blockchain designed for the coming world of autonomous software agents. The project’s goal is simple to describe and hard to execute: give AI agents a native way to prove who they are, follow rules, and pay each other at machine speed. On Kite, identity, governance, and payments are built into the protocol so agents can authenticate, coordinate, and settle with stablecoins in real time. The chain is EVM-compatible, so it works with familiar Ethereum tools while adding AI‑first features like agent passports and programmable permissions. (docs.gokite.ai)

Under the hood, Kite blends blockchain rails with an agent identity layer called Kite AIR (Agent Identity Resolution). AIR issues each agent a cryptographic “passport,” enforces policy guardrails, and supports streaming micro‑payments between agents. The network’s design emphasizes fast finality and low fees so tiny, usage‑based payments become practical for bots and autonomous services. (paypal.vc)

Kite positions itself as a trust and transaction layer for the “agentic internet,” where billions of small interactions—data lookups, API calls, compute bursts—are priced and settled automatically. The public website showcases an Agent App Store concept and a user “passport” that lets people and agents discover, interact, and transact across services. (gokite.ai)

History & Team

Kite grew out of Zettablock, a data infrastructure startup that served major Web3 projects. As interest in autonomous agents surged, the team pivoted to focus on identity, governance, and payment primitives tailor‑made for agents. In September 2025, Kite announced an $18 million Series A round co‑led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst, bringing total funding to $33 million. Investor notes describe Kite as building “foundational trust infrastructure” for agentic commerce. (coindesk.com)

The founding team is experienced in AI, large‑scale data systems, and blockchain. CEO and cofounder Chi Zhang holds a PhD in machine learning from UC Berkeley and previously led data engineering products at Databricks. CTO and cofounder Scott Shi built real‑time AI data platforms at Uber and contributed to Salesforce’s Einstein AI. The leadership roster also includes Lei Lei (business development and strategy) and Yusuke Muraoka (principal AI engineer). (gokite.ai)

Kite’s early network work has been tightly linked with Avalanche’s ecosystem. Public posts from company leadership and industry coverage describe Kite’s AI‑focused sovereign L1 as built on Avalanche technology, aligning with the chain’s EVM tooling and performance profile. The project launched its public testnet in early 2025 and has continued to expand SDKs, sample dapps, and developer tooling since then. (linkedin.com)

Technology & How It Works

Architecture at a glance

Kite is an EVM‑compatible Layer‑1 with agent‑native building blocks. Developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts, connect with standard wallets, and use familiar frameworks while gaining access to agent identity, programmable policy, and stablecoin‑native settlement. A modular architecture layers “Proof of Attributed Intelligence (PoAI)” concepts, SDKs, and agent tooling on top of the base chain. (docs.gokite.ai)

• Agent identity and auth: Every agent can hold a verifiable cryptographic ID—its “passport”—that signs requests and links actions to a provenance trail. These IDs are portable across services and compatible with Model Context Protocol (MCP) so agents can surface inside tools like Claude and other MCP‑aware apps. (gokite.ai)
• Programmable trust: Policies define what an agent may do and spend. Usage logs, attestations, and optional proofs provide an auditable history. This design aims to let services price risk, enable refunds or dispute flows, and build reputation for agents over time. (gokite.ai)
• Agent‑native payments: The stack emphasizes stablecoin settlement and streaming micro‑transactions between agents. Kite’s investor materials describe state‑channel–style flows for high‑frequency, low‑value payments that are summarized on‑chain, reducing latency and cost. (paypal.vc)

Network and developer tools

Kite maintains a public testnet (“Ozone”) with a dedicated RPC, faucet, and explorer. The test network uses KITE as the native gas token, is reachable with MetaMask, and exposes a chain ID for quick setup. Official docs include sample dapps, a token minter tutorial, and a voting dapp to help developers get started. (docs.gokite.ai)

For wallet UX, Kite ships an Account Abstraction SDK based on ERC‑4337 principles. Builders can create smart‑contract wallets, define spending rules for agents, and send gasless transactions via a bundler. There is also a Safe‑style multisig (“Ash Wallet”) adapted for Kite, aimed at treasuries, upgrade councils, and agent‑ops with features like spending limits and batch payouts. (docs.gokite.ai)

Consensus and PoAI

Kite’s public materials introduce Proof of Attributed Intelligence (PoAI) as a network‑wide mechanism to attribute and reward contributions across data, models, and agents. The idea is to recognize who added measurable value—such as which dataset improved a model or which agent delivered the useful output—and route rewards accordingly. This attribution‑first approach is meant to align incentives for a healthy agent economy. (gokite.ai)

Tokenomics & Utility

KITE is the native asset of the Kite blockchain. On testnet, it is used for gas and contract execution, and the docs describe a broader economic model once mainnet is live:

• Gas and fees: Users and apps pay KITE for transactions and on‑chain operations. (docs.gokite.ai)
• Staking and security: Validators secure the network and earn KITE for confirming transactions and AI workloads; delegators can stake with validators and share rewards. (docs.gokite.ai)
• Governance: The protocol envisions token‑holder participation in setting policies that affect token flows and module operations. (docs.gokite.ai)
• PoAI rewards: Builders of agents and models, as well as data providers, can receive KITE based on provable attribution of their contributions inside modules and workflows. (docs.gokite.ai)

As of now, the project has not published a finalized whitepaper with a public supply schedule or allocation breakdown on its website. The whitepaper page indicates that a formal document is “coming soon.” Until those details are released, most information focuses on roles, incentives, and usage patterns rather than specific supply numbers. (gokite.ai)

Ecosystem & Use Cases

Kite’s north star is an agent marketplace where people and organizations can discover, hire, and combine agents across many tasks. The site describes a Store that can appear inside MCP‑aware assistants—starting with Claude—so users can plan trips, shop, compare services, and complete purchases without leaving their preferred interface. Purchases are intended to settle on‑chain using stablecoins, and early pilot integrations mention Shopify and PayPal APIs to help merchants become discoverable to shopping agents. (gokite.ai)

For developers, the ecosystem encourages “modules” that bundle data, models, and services for specialized jobs. A growing set of SDKs and examples show how to issue agent passports, set spending rules, and publish services to the Store. The official ecosystem page highlights 100+ projects and integrations in flight across AI, infrastructure, and DeFi categories. (docs.gokite.ai)

Illustrative use cases include:

• Agent‑to‑agent commerce: An analysis agent pays a data agent per query, then a planner agent pays a compute service per second for model inference, with all steps logged and settled programmatically. (paypal.vc)
• Shopping and fulfillment: A consumer grants a passport with spending limits; a shopping agent compares offers, negotiates add‑on services, and pays merchants via stablecoin rails. (gokite.ai)
• Enterprise automation: Teams deploy internal agents with fine‑grained permissions, route micro‑budgets to services, and track attribution for cost and quality control. (docs.gokite.ai)

Advantages & Challenges

Advantages

• Agent‑native design: Identity, permissions, and payments are core protocol features, not bolt‑ons. This fits how autonomous agents actually operate. (docs.gokite.ai)
• EVM compatibility: Solidity, MetaMask, and common Ethereum tooling work out of the box, lowering the barrier for developers. (docs.gokite.ai)
• Micropayment focus: The stack is built for low‑latency, low‑cost streams of tiny payments, which is essential for machine‑to‑machine activity. (paypal.vc)
• Strong backers: The project is funded by well‑known investors, including PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst, and has public links with the Avalanche ecosystem. (coindesk.com)
• Growing ecosystem: The team highlights 100+ integrations and provides SDKs, sample apps, and developer guides. (ecosystem.gokite.ai)

Challenges

• Network maturity: At the time of writing, the whitepaper and mainnet are still forthcoming, so final parameters and economics continue to evolve. (gokite.ai)
• New market category: The “agentic internet” is emerging. Standards for identity, safety, and commerce among agents are still being defined across the industry. (paypal.vc)
• Integration depth: Real‑world impact depends on robust integrations with data sources, commerce platforms, and payment providers at scale, not only pilots. (cointelegraph.com)

Where to Buy & Wallets

KITE is not listed on major centralized exchanges as a tradable mainnet asset at this time. KITE is available on Kite’s Ozone testnet for development and testing. Developers can claim test KITE from the official faucet and configure MetaMask with the KiteAI Testnet RPC, chain ID 2368, and the testnet explorer. (docs.gokite.ai)

MetaMask works for everyday testing, and builders who need smart‑account features can use Kite’s Account Abstraction SDK to create rule‑based agent wallets and send gasless transactions. Teams managing treasuries and governance can deploy a Safe‑style multisig (Ash Wallet) adapted for Kite. (docs.gokite.ai)

Because Kite is EVM‑compatible, most Ethereum‑style wallets will function once mainnet launches. The project’s docs and dashboard will provide the official network settings and asset contracts when the mainnet is live. (docs.gokite.ai)

Regulatory & Compliance

Kite is infrastructure: a public blockchain and developer platform for identity, policy, and payments among agents. The protocol itself does not perform customer onboarding or custody; those steps typically occur at the application layer or at on‑ and off‑ramps that convert fiat to stablecoins and vice versa. In practice, compliance responsibilities will vary by use case. A merchant integrating through the Agent App Store, for example, may rely on regulated payment partners and follow applicable KYC/AML rules, while an open‑source agent that only consumes public data may not touch regulated rails at all. Public investor commentary about Kite’s focus on stablecoin settlement and programmable trust underscores this application‑layer approach. (paypal.vc)

Regarding shariah considerations, Kite has not published a formal Islamic finance certification. The protocol offers general‑purpose tools—identity, programmable permissions, and payment rails—but does not dictate how they must be used. Whether an activity built on Kite aligns with Islamic finance principles depends on the specific contract structure. For instance, agent subscriptions or pay‑per‑use services can be organized without interest, while leverage or speculative structures could conflict with shariah guidance. In the absence of an official ruling or certification from qualified scholars, Kite should not be considered shariah‑certified; instead, compliance rests on how developers and merchants design their products on top of the network. (docs.gokite.ai)

Future Outlook

The vision is for agents to become a mainstream interface for the web: shopping, scheduling, research, and negotiation handled by software that can prove its identity, follow policies, and pay as it goes. Near‑term milestones for Kite include production‑grade mainnet parameters, a formal whitepaper, deeper SDKs, and broader merchant integrations for stablecoin settlement. The funding announced in September 2025 is aimed at scaling AIR, expanding commerce integrations, and making agent‑to‑agent billing routine. If that path continues, Kite could emerge as a standard layer for identity, trust, and micropayments in agent‑driven applications. (coindesk.com)

Summary

Kite (KITE) is building an AI‑native Layer‑1 where agents have first‑class identities, programmable guardrails, and native access to stablecoin payments. The chain is EVM‑compatible, backed by notable investors, and supported by a growing set of tools: a public testnet, faucet, explorer, SDKs, and a Safe‑style multisig. While the full token supply and mainnet economics are still to be formally published, the project’s direction is clear—turn billions of tiny interactions among agents into verifiable, auditable transactions that settle instantly and at low cost. If autonomous agents become a common way to use the internet, a trust‑and‑payments base layer like Kite could play an important role in how that economy runs. (docs.gokite.ai)