Space Review | The Eve of Web 4.0: OpenClaw Sparks AI Agent Wave, Bank of AI Debuts to Establish the Foundation for Intelligent Agent Economy and Finance

Bank of AI, through its five core components—x402, 8004, MCP Server, Skills, and OpenClaw plugins—builds a comprehensive on-chain financial operating system for AI Agents. This enables intelligent entities to have independent payment, identity, and asset management capabilities, making them true participants in the Web4.0 era.

Recently, the explosive popularity of OpenClaw has reignited focus on the AI Agent track. If past AI booms were mainly at the tool level, this wave’s core transformation is that AI Agents are shifting from command-executing programs to autonomous, decision-making participants. This AI Agent-driven revolution is accelerating the public’s awareness of Web4.0—a new era where networks are composed of humans and intelligent entities working together to create value.

In this wave, AINFT officially launched the new infrastructure for AI Agents—Bank of AI—integrating deeply with x402 payment standards, 8004 on-chain identity protocols, MCP Server, Skills, and OpenClaw’s extension plugins. This creates an AI Agent financial operating system, providing core financial functions like on-chain payments, identity verification, and DeFi operations, establishing a vital infrastructure for Web4.0.

From OpenClaw’s rise to the launch of Bank of AI, AI Agents are evolving from tools to autonomous entities. This Space roundtable, starting with OpenClaw’s popularity, explores user needs behind the AI Agent wave, potential evolution of Web4.0, and how AINFT’s AI Agent infrastructure is transforming user experience. Here’s a recap of this episode.

OpenClaw Ignites the AI Agent Track: Short-term Hotspot or Structural Signal for Web4.0?

Recently, OpenClaw’s emergence has sparked renewed industry attention on AI Agents, quickly becoming a favorite among tech, capital, and major players. When a tool gains such rapid popularity, what attracts users? Is it the breakthrough in technology itself, or does it tap into deeper needs? The guests discussed this from different perspectives.

Web3 expert Monkey argues that OpenClaw’s rapid rise isn’t just chasing a trend but precisely addresses core user pain points related to efficiency and fault tolerance. He explains that in traditional repetitive tasks, humans spend significant effort on trivial operations. When AI Agents take over, this effort is reduced, boosting efficiency. More importantly, humans are prone to emotional fluctuations and fatigue, leading to errors in high-intensity tasks. AI Agents, with standardized, predictable execution, offer peace of mind. He states, AI Agents’ cost-performance in efficiency, error rate, and cost far surpasses humans, especially in repetitive roles, where their substitutability is obvious.

Building on this, Wang Feng Anc adds that from a cognitive perspective, human brains have limited information processing capacity. AI Agents, capable of 24/7 operation, can shoulder this cognitive load, enabling “cognitive outsourcing.” Particularly in on-chain transactions, risk control is critical—mistakes can be costly, and humans are the most unstable variable. AI Agents can handle high-cost risks, addressing the real issue of traders struggling to keep up with market pace.

It’s this ability of OpenClaw to solve real problems at efficiency, cognition, and risk levels that fuels market enthusiasm for AI Agents, leading to a proliferation of intelligent entities. This burst of activity prompts speculation: are we witnessing the evolution from Web3.0 to Web4.0?

In the Web4.0 vision, blockchain and token systems serve as foundational support. AI Agents are no longer just tools but “smart proxies” representing users—holding wallets, identities, executing transactions, participating in governance, managing assets, and even creating value. This structural shift is being increasingly recognized. Wang Feng Anc notes that Web3.0’s essence was user sovereignty, immutability, and decentralization, with interactions mainly through user clicks. In Web4.0, the emergence of AI Agents suggests future protocols may prioritize serving AI over humans.

Crypto.0824 illustrates this with everyday examples. Comparing traditional and AI-driven operations, he recalls that token swaps via SUN.io used to involve multiple steps—opening a webpage, connecting a wallet, setting slippage, signing transactions—tedious and time-consuming. In Web4.0, simply instructing an AI Agent suffices; it finds the optimal path and executes automatically. This signifies a fundamental change in interaction logic—users no longer directly operate protocols but communicate intentions through AI Agents. Notably, some new DeFi protocols are designed from the ground up to better support AI calls, offering APIs, gas optimizations, and even AI-specific discounts.

As AI Agents become active participants on the internet, with identities and assets, capable of reading, writing, and executing transactions independently, the consensus is that we are witnessing the structural beginning of Web3.0’s evolution into Web4.0. In this future, humans and intelligent entities will jointly form the network’s main actors.

From Tool to Subject: Bank of AI Builds the Financial Infrastructure for Web4.0 AI Agents

Realizing Web4.0 requires foundational infrastructure that can truly bring AI Agents “to life.” Just as society relies on bank accounts, identity verification, and payment networks, AI Agents need their own financial base to operate independently on-chain. In this context, AINFT, a native Web3 AI platform on the TRON ecosystem, launched the new AI Agent infrastructure—Bank of AI—creating a complete financial operation system for AI Agents. This system endows each AI Agent with full financial capabilities. Specifically, it includes five core components:

• x402 Payment Protocol: Provides lightweight, low-cost on-chain payments, supporting high-frequency micro-payments and automated settlements.

• 8004 Identity Protocol: Issues verifiable on-chain digital identities for each AI Agent, establishing trust and reputation.

• MCP Server: Acts as a standardized interface between AI large models and blockchain services, connecting AI with the on-chain world.

• Skills: Offers modular, reusable capabilities such as DeFi operations and asset management.

• OpenClaw Plugins: Enable any AI Agent based on OpenClaw to instantly gain full on-chain financial functions, achieving plug-and-play integration.

Together, these components allow AI Agents to possess “bank accounts + IDs + investment accounts,” making them independent participants in on-chain economic activities. This infrastructure is the cornerstone of turning intelligent entities from concept to reality.

However, when AI Agents can not only execute commands but also directly receive and send payments, manage on-chain funds independently, the question arises: is this liberation of time or a gradual loss of control? Wang Feng Anc emphasizes that the core issue isn’t whether to delegate authority but how much to delegate and whether it’s controllable.

He explains that if AI is a black box only providing results, reliance anxiety is inevitable. But if AI is configurable, limitable, and can be halted at any time, it can enhance efficiency without sacrificing rights. He predicts that future human core skills will shift from manual operation to configuring AI—defining strategic boundaries, setting risk parameters, and orchestrating multiple AI Agents. This requires users to upgrade their thinking.

Bank of AI offers the ability to set these boundaries, allowing users to enjoy automation while maintaining control. As a chain-based financial system designed for autonomous AI Agents, it makes AI’s financial actions transparent—every payment, protocol interaction, and decision traceable. Users can review AI Agent’s operation paths, trace decision bases, and enforce controls through preset permissions. This configurable, traceable, and intervene-able mechanism frees users from “being replaced by AI” anxiety, transforming them into “architects with control.”

From OpenClaw’s popularity to Bank of AI’s launch, the concentrated emergence of AI Agents signals that the future of Web4.0 is here. In this new landscape, humans and intelligent entities form the network’s main body, each playing their role and evolving together. AINFT is building the financial infrastructure for AI Agents in this new world—making AI Agents truly “live” on-chain and ensuring humans retain mastery. The curtain of Web4.0 has risen; we are both witnesses and builders.