I’ve spent the better part of the last decade watching "walled gardens" crumble in the tech world. We saw it with open-source software, and we’re seeing it now with the massive shift in how we think about artificial intelligence. For the longest time, AI has been treated like a proprietary product—something you rent from a giant tech firm via a monthly subscription. But as we head into the final stretch of 2025, a new narrative is taking hold. I’ve been following the KITEAI Open Intelligence Campaign, and their core thesis is one of the most refreshing things I’ve seen in a while: AI models shouldn't be products; they should be public infrastructure.
Think about the roads you drive on or the electricity that powers your home. You don't care who manufactured the asphalt or which company owns the power lines, as long as the system is open, reliable, and allows you to go where you need to go. KITEAI is applying that same "utility" logic to AI. Instead of forcing developers into a vendor lock-in where they are at the mercy of a single provider’s API pricing or censorship rules, KITEAI is building a decentralized Layer-1 where intelligence is a shared resource. It’s a move from "AI as a Service" to "AI as an Infrastructure."
From a trader’s perspective, this is a massive deal for one reason: composability. In DeFi, we’ve seen how "money legos" allowed for an explosion of innovation. You can take a lending protocol, plug it into an aggregator, and wrap it in a yield vault. KITEAI is doing the same for "intelligence legos." Because the models on their network are treated as public infrastructure, a developer can pull a sentiment analysis model from one contributor, a price prediction model from another, and an execution agent from a third—all without needing a dozen different contracts or worrying that one of those providers will pull the plug.
I remember a conversation I had with a developer earlier this year who was frustrated because a major AI provider changed their "terms of service" overnight, breaking his automated trading bot. That is the risk of closed intelligence. KITEAI’s model removes that "platform risk." By using their Proof of Attributed Intelligence (PoAI), the network ensures that the people who build and host these models are paid fairly for their contribution, but the models themselves remain accessible to the entire ecosystem. It’s a marketplace of intelligence that operates on public rails.
As of December 2025, the data shows this approach is working. The KITEAI ecosystem has grown to over 100 projects, ranging from AI-driven DeFi vaults to autonomous shopping agents. The token generation event (TGE) in November 2025 saw a massive influx of participants, and the FDV has stabilized as the market realizes this isn't just another "AI wrapper." With over 20 million users across their testnet phases, they have the kind of stress-tested data that institutional investors look for. When you see names like PayPal Ventures and Coinbase Ventures backing a project, they aren't just betting on a chatbot; they are betting on the pipes that will carry the $4.4 trillion agent economy.
What really makes this "Open Intelligence" work is the SPACE framework. For those who aren't technical, "SPACE" stands for Stablecoin-native, Programmable, Agent-first, Compliance-ready, and Economically viable. It’s the checklist for how a public utility should function. For instance, being "Stablecoin-native" means that AI agents can pay each other in USDC or PYUSD for micro-tasks—like $0.0001 for a single data query—without the friction of volatile gas fees. This "pay-per-request" economy is only possible when the infrastructure is open and the costs are predictable.
I’ve often been asked why a company would choose to put their model on an open infrastructure instead of keeping it closed. The answer is simple: distribution and attribution. In the KITEAI model, if your piece of code or your dataset helps a trading bot make a profitable move, you get a slice of that value automatically via PoAI. You don't have to hire a sales team or build a front-end; you just contribute to the "public brain" and let the network handle the monetization. It’s a more efficient way to capture the value of intelligence.
Looking ahead to 2026, the trend of "Open Intelligence" is only going to accelerate. We are seeing more "Agentic App Stores" pop up, where users can discover and deploy these infrastructure-level models for their own personal use. It’s a shift that reminds me of the early days of the internet. We moved from private intranets to the open web, and the value created was exponential. KITEAI is doing that for AI. They are tearing down the walls and letting the intelligence flow. For those of us who believe in a decentralized future, this isn't just a technical upgrade—it’s a prerequisite for a fair digital economy.
