- Web structure is shifting toward enabling ‘agent experience’, potentially disrupting the attention economy
- AI agents can handle tasks ranging from payments to negotiations and online transactions
- Animoca Brands is also progressing plans tied to a proposed Nasdaq listing transaction
Special Report: As Animoca Brands advances proposed Nasdaq listing plans, co-founder Yat Siu is outlining a future where blockchain-powered AI agents could fundamentally reshape how humans interact with the internet.
The next phase of the web is already seeing a massive number of autonomous AI agents browsing, negotiating and transacting on behalf of users.
“The last three decades of the web have been dominated by user experience, or UX. The next decade will be shaped by agent experience, or AX,” Siu noted.
In this model, AI agents will browse the web, negotiate transactions, manage digital assets and complete complex workflows for humans, but at machine speed.
Animoca Brands believes blockchain infrastructure is a key economic layer underpinning that shift to an “Agentic Web”. The company is continuing to expand its AI, digital identity and blockchain ecosystem around that broader thesis.
Nasdaq plans progress
That strategy also includes ongoing efforts tied to a proposed Nasdaq listing.
Early this month, Nasdaq-listed fintech platform Currenc Group announced an extension of the exclusivity period linked to its proposed reverse merger with Animoca Brands Corporation Limited, giving both parties more time to complete due diligence and finalize negotiations.
While no binding agreement has yet been finalized, the proposed transaction could ultimately provide Animoca Brands with a pathway to a public market listing in the US.
Blockchain as the economic layer
A major pillar of Siu’s vision is the idea that blockchain infrastructure becomes essential if AI agents are to transact independently.
If autonomous agents eventually need to buy computing power, acquire data, pay service fees or transact with other agents, Siu argues they require a native economic framework.
“Blockchain is not merely an option,” Siu said. “It is the essential legal and economic substrate for machine-native commerce.”
Under this framework, agents could hold wallets, transfer digital assets, verify identity and execute payments without requiring constant human oversight.
Persistent autonomous AI agents are already emerging across parts of the crypto ecosystem, including trading platforms, decentralized compute marketplaces and blockchain-based digital asset networks.
Siu says specialised AI agents can handle tasks ranging from financial management and governance to data retrieval, logistics and automated online transactions, and could do so on a massive scale relatively soon.
Animoca Brands is already investing in infrastructure tied to this idea, including digital identity platform Moca Network and its new agent platform tentatively named Minds by Animoca Brands.
A different internet economy
Siu believes the rise of AI agents will also reshape how the internet itself operates.
Today’s web is largely driven by the “attention economy”, where ads, notifications and algorithms constantly compete for user engagement.
But AI agents acting on behalf of users will prioritise efficiency and filtering rather than emotional engagement, disrupting existing digital advertising models.
Rather than humans manually searching, browsing and comparing products, agents will increasingly retrieve information, evaluate options and even execute certain decisions automatically.
“Although AI is causing painful disruptions in the workforce, I do not think that humans will be supplanted en-masse by artificial beings,” Siu said.
“Instead, I think humans will move up the stack.”
Big vision, real-world hurdles
While the concept is strikingly ambitious and already underway, some technical and regulatory challenges remain.
Persistent AI agents conducting sophisticated operations across multiple platforms require advances in coordination, trust, security and identity management.
Users would also need confidence in autonomous systems managing financial transactions, personal data and online activity.
Still, Siu argues that the foundations for this shift are already emerging.
“I firmly believe that the future of the internet is not just artificial intelligence, but agentic intelligence with economic sovereignty,” he said.
“The people and organizations that understand how to hire, design, build, and govern for this new paradigm – technologically, culturally, and economically – are likely to be the ones who define the next decade.”
