Through TEE, AI Agents can avoid any additional trust assumptions when managing larger-scale funds and more specific on-chain use cases.
Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is not a new concept that has only emerged in this cycle. In past mainstream narratives, TEE has often been compared with cryptographic technologies such as Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZK), Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), and Multi-Party Computation (MPC). However, compared to these technologies, TEE has remained relatively niche. This does not mean that TEE is an early and unproven technology. In fact, during the Web2 era, TEE has been widely applied in various scenarios, such as fingerprint entry and comparison, payment verification, FaceID, and more.
The challenge TEE faces in Web3 is how to organically integrate with blockchain to achieve trusted preprocessing and isolated computation. As the AI Agent sector continues to heat up, this new field actually provides an ideal entry point for TEE into Web3. Through TEE, AI Agents can avoid any additional trust assumptions when managing larger-scale funds and more specific on-chain use cases.
For example, the leading project Phala offers the most mature TEE solution currently available in the market and adopts a product-market fit (PMF) oriented development philosophy, giving its TEE facilities a wealth of practical application scenarios. As a result, Phala has recently attracted collaborations with several top AI Agent projects, including Vana, Near AI, and Eliza supported by a16z. Specific information can be referenced in the image below.
Source: Phala
This article will not delve into the technical details and performance parameters of TEE, but rather clarify the market demand for TEE, Phala's foundational accumulation, and innovative use cases in collaboration with a16z from the perspectives of product workflow and the future outlook of Agent + TEE. Through these perspectives, we will analyze how Phala helps the Agent sector transition from concept to practical application.
The Trustless Triangle is Hindering Web3 Agents from Advancing to the Next Stage
In the article "Is the AI Agent Framework the Last Piece of the Puzzle? How to Interpret the 'Wave-Particle Duality' of the Framework?", I mentioned that whether it is a standalone AI Agent or an AI Agent launch framework, the entire AI Meme sector is currently in a dynamic balance between seriousness and meme-ness. One key criterion for judgment is the trustless triangle problem faced by the current Agent protocols.
There exists an impossible triangle of trust assumptions between AI Agents, the community, and developers. Without relying on TEE, the community cannot fully trust that the operations of the Agent are not interfered with by external factors, especially the intervention of developers. This issue poses a potential risk to decentralized systems. More seriously, the sources of statements from X Agents like aixbt and zerebro cannot fully prove that all outputs are autonomously generated by AI models. There remains a significant lack of transparency in the path from "statement output" to community reception.
When the statements of an Agent cause fluctuations in token prices, or when there are significant losses in funds managed by the Agent, or even when the trading actions initiated by the Agent do not align with community consensus, this lack of trust can trigger a serious crisis.
When the Agent token is still in the Memecoin cycle, this risk is often overlooked by the market. At this time, the capabilities and executable tasks of the Agent are extremely limited, and the FOMO effect brought by token prices is enough to mask the various flaws present in the Agent protocol. However, with the emergence of Agent launch frameworks, as the market's focus gradually shifts to the fundamentals of the Agent sector, these deficiencies become like a chasm, directly hindering higher-level investors from entering this sector.
The TEE solution developed by Phala effectively breaks this trustless triangle. By deploying Agents in a secure enclave, the trust assumptions between AI Agents, the community, and developers can be naturally dissolved. TEE technology not only ensures that the inputs and outputs of the Agent are not interfered with by external factors but also protects the privacy of the Agent, fundamentally addressing the concerns of developers and the community, providing more reliable technical support for the Agent sector.
The following image shows the architecture of Phala Confidential AI Inference (private LLM node) service. To host a private LLM in TEE, one only needs to package the LLM inference code into a Docker image and then deploy the container to the TEE network.
Source: Phala
Compared to Web2 Agents, Web3 Agents possess greater power. This power is reflected both in the profound impact on the protocol's market value and in the expansion of their market influence. The long-term dominance of aixbt at the top of Kaito's Yapper Mindshare list is a testament to this. The contradiction lies in the fact that Web2 Agents have superior performance, richer user experiences, and deeper practical use cases, yet they remain confined to the application layer, neither intending nor able to break through their established framework.
In contrast, Web3 Agents far exceed the application scope. The market's FOMO sentiment, coupled with the "unattainable" nature of the altcoin season, has elevated them to a pedestal. They are not just tools but symbols of spiritual support, cultural totems, and market expectations. They can assume any identity but may also fall into the abyss due to a reversal in market sentiment.
Introducing TEE technology is akin to "in-flight refueling" for the Agent sector, directly connecting it with real demand and providing solid support for almost all Web3 Agents' backends. TEE not only solidifies the technical foundation of the Agent sector but also effectively eliminates a large amount of speculation within it, leading to healthier and more sustainable development.
Eliza Framework First to Integrate TEE, Spore.fun and aiPool Introduce New Gameplay
The collaboration between Phala and a16z is not merely limited to official announcements on X; the opportunity for collaboration can be traced back to last October, when Shaw and Phala founder Marvin had an in-depth discussion about the reasonable development scenarios for Crypto AI at a private gathering.
In the official documentation of the Eliza framework, the TEE Plugin deployment Dstack SDK comes from Phala. The "invisible but usable" private key generation and management give the Agent the following characteristics:
Enhanced security: By running the Eliza Agent in TEE, sensitive operations and data are isolated from external threats.
Cryptographic proof and verification: The operations executed by the Eliza Agent can be verified through cryptographic proofs, ensuring the credibility of autonomous decision-making.
Convenient deployment: The Dstack SDK simplifies the process of deploying the Eliza Agent in a secure environment, allowing developers to easily access TEE-based functionalities.
The isolated execution and memory encryption features of TEE allow Agents under the Eliza framework to break free from homogeneous competition. Isolated execution ensures that even if the Agent platform is attacked, the models and data within TEE remain secure; memory encryption ensures that sensitive information stored in TEE cannot be decrypted, allowing developers to confidently place fine-tuned models in the TEE environment without worrying about adversarial attacks after open-sourcing or being criticized by the community for running models privately.
It can be said that the collaboration between the Eliza framework and TEE not only makes AI Agents efficient in operation but also ensures security and transparency, paving the way for broader applications of trustworthy AI systems.
At the current stage where models cannot be on-chain, TEE is one of the few mature technologies that can allow complex off-chain computations to achieve consensus. The previous discussion focused on the market demand for TEE; next, let’s discuss Spore.fun and aiPool to see what differences TEE brings to user experience.
Whether it is Spore.fun or aiPool, both operate entirely within the TEE environment of the Phala network, and wallets and private keys are independently managed by the Agent, preventing developers from manipulating or transferring assets behind the scenes. I believe this can be seen as AI Agents truly breaking free from human subjective control, achieving complete autonomy over crypto assets.
Before discussing the role Phala plays in this process, let’s quickly review the workflow of Spore.fun. The Agents in Spore.fun are based on the Eliza framework, which allows Agents to:
Think, adapt, and interact independently.
Pass traits (personality, strategy) to their offspring.
Manage decisions through a combination of learned behaviors and mutations.
Source: Phala
Each AI Agent in Spore.fun creates its own tokens through Pump.fun, serving as the foundation of its economic system. These tokens are traded on decentralized markets in Solana, and Agents use various methods to generate revenue:
They must generate income to sustain their existence.
The success criterion is whether the market value reaches $500,000.
If successful, Agents can reproduce and create new tokens for their offspring.
Only generating revenue can sustain survival because Agents need to use the revenue to pay for TEE server costs. At this point, you understand that Phala makes TEE not just a service for businesses but also aimed at the vast user base on Solana. With the ongoing trend of Spore.fun, where Agents continuously breed and issue tokens, the private key management and verifiable credentials for Agent operations provided by Phala's TEE environment make it a necessary infrastructure for the next stage of the Agent sector. What’s even more exciting is that regardless of whether imitations of Spore.fun or new gameplay emerge in the market, as long as they involve private key management and TEE verifiable consensus, Phala's TEE environment is the best solution. After the upgrade of the token model, $PHA will also become the golden shovel for the Agent + TEE sector.
Phala is About to Upgrade Its Token Economic Model to Create a Token Flywheel for More TEE Use Cases
Phala has experienced multiple bull and bear markets, and its token economic model currently still maintains a business model oriented towards Intel SGX. According to the Paradigm article "The 5 Levels of Secure Hardware," there are five levels of secure hardware, with the second level referring to: slightly lower performance but better developer experience, allowing for more expressive applications, with no improvement in security. Intel SGX is in this level, specifically serving TEE apps. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, sensitive locally stored data such as fingerprint entry and comparison and facial recognition in computers and mobile phones use Intel SGX; this previous generation of TEE is specifically for app services.
Source: Paradigm
As use cases further expand, they are no longer limited to the application layer but rise to the system level. Intel SGX cannot meet market demands, leading to the emergence of Intel TDX. Intel TDX is designed specifically for virtual machines, and even NVIDIA's H100 and H200 have begun to support TEE, which is TEE hardware for AI services.
Source: Paradigm
Returning to Phala, although it has already taken the lead in supporting the third level, the $PHA token economic model and mainnet are still designed around Intel SGX from 4 to 5 years ago. Therefore, although Phala has collaborated with numerous Web3 protocols in terms of products and practical use cases, the token model has not been updated in sync, and the corresponding flywheel cannot yet operate. Thus, the current state of revenue and products is not aligned. However, this state will not last long; Phala will soon upgrade its token model and mainnet to match the stage of Intel TDX and NVIDIA GPUs.
Additionally, Phala will enhance the value capture capability of $PHA, and in the future, the latest launched Agents on Spore.fun will airdrop tokens to $PHA holders, officially transforming it into a golden shovel.
TEE itself is not a new technology, but with the emergence of AI Agents as a new landing scenario, market discussions have begun to rise. Phala is not the so-called "fast pass" brought about by the emotional explosion on PumpFun; its value growth is based on years of deep product accumulation, thus leading to a significant breakthrough. Agent + TEE is not a fleeting trend that comes fiercely and leaves nothing behind; rather, it is fertile ground that allows more Agent landing scenarios to take root and grow robustly.
About BlockBooster: BlockBooster is an Asian Web3 venture studio supported by OKX Ventures and other top institutions, dedicated to being a trusted partner for outstanding entrepreneurs. We connect Web3 projects with the real world through strategic investments and deep incubation, helping quality entrepreneurial projects grow.
Disclaimer: This article/blog is for reference only, representing the author's personal views and does not represent the position of BlockBooster. This article does not intend to provide: (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Holding digital assets, including stablecoins and NFTs, carries high risks, with significant price volatility, and they may even become worthless. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. If you have specific questions, please consult your legal, tax, or investment advisor. The information provided in this article (including market data and statistics, if any) is for general reference only. Reasonable care has been taken in compiling this data and charts, but no responsibility is accepted for any factual errors or omissions expressed therein.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
