The Solana Foundation positions this network as the core infrastructure of an emerging “agent” internet, where AI systems, rather than humans, initiate and carry out economic activities.
“AI isn’t really a vertical. It’s a platform change that impacts everything in every industry, including cryptocurrencies,” said Viv Norby, chief product officer at Solana Foundation, during a panel discussion at the Digital Asset Summit (DAS) in New York.
At the heart of Solana’s strategy is payments. Norby said the network has already “processed 15 million payments on-chain from agents,” primarily related to machine-to-machine commerce. “The programmatic aspect of crypto payments is interesting for agents,” he said, adding that “stablecoins will become the default thing agents use to pay for all computational resources.”
Norby believes this change has the potential to fundamentally reshape the Internet’s business model. “Agent payments will probably change the entire way the Internet is monetized,” he said, pointing to its ability to support subcent pay-as-you-go transactions that traditional railroads cannot handle.
The Solana Foundation claims that the network’s performance-oriented design gives it an advantage in this new paradigm. “Agents are cold, calculating machines… They don’t believe in the religious nature of cryptocurrencies,” Norby said. “When you ask an agent what is the best way to pay for something with cryptocurrencies, Solana almost always comes up at the top.”
At the same time, advances in AI are eroding long-standing developer barriers, and tools are now making it easier for developers and machines to build across ecosystems.
In response, Solana developers are building AI systems directly. “Agents love APIs, documentation, and skills,” Norby said, pointing to efforts like machine-readable “skills” files and AI-first developer platforms.
Looking ahead, Norby expects user behavior to change dramatically. “The default way people interact with cryptocurrencies will be through agents…95 to 99% of all transactions…will come from LLMs.”
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