Tom Lee: AI May Cut Humans Out of the Loop Entirely

Autonomous agents require specialized financial infrastructure to scale, as traditional banking systems fail to support machine-to-machine payments, identity-less transactions, and high-frequency micro-payments. Crypto networks provide the necessary programmable rails to instantiate trust through smart contracts, enabling autonomous escrow, risk management, and dynamic fee distribution without human intermediaries. Virtuals Protocol is advancing this shift by developing an "EconomyOS" that allows agents to manage wallets, raise capital, and build reputation registries based on on-chain performance. Beyond digital agents, the integration of physical robotics into this economic framework creates new value streams, particularly through the sale of teleoperation data for training embodied AI models. This evolution moves toward a future where autonomous agents operate as independent economic actors, optimizing supply chains and financial services in real-time without human intervention.