In this way, Talus expands the digital workforce into the digital economy. It changes the way we work and create value, preparing for the transition to the era of the autonomous economy. 1. Prerequisites for an Autonomous Digital Economy Artificial intelligence (AI) agents (hereinafter referred to as "agents") are gaining increasing attention as "digital workers." They are capable of autonomously understanding complex situations, making independent judgments, and executing tasks. Transaction agents can process transactions on behalf of users in milliseconds. Customer service agents leverage historical customer data and product information to handle thousands of inquiries simultaneously. Agents are becoming a new type of economic entity that autonomously creates value, transcending simple tools that simply execute commands. This development opens the possibility for a new paradigm: the "autonomous digital economy." This paradigm envisions a fully autonomous economic ecosystem in which agents can transact and collaborate directly with other agents or users without human intervention. Once realized, this paradigm will create efficient markets that operate 24/7 and transcend the limitations of human labor. It will also spawn entirely new markets that do not yet exist but have the potential to grow to trillions of dollars. However, this remains an idealistic goal. Agents require trust mechanisms to verify their actions and outcomes. Without these mechanisms, they cannot autonomously conduct economic activities. This requirement reflects the needs of the real economy. Human labor evolved from simple behavior to economic activity because society established an institutional foundation. Laws regulate behavior, contracts ensure fulfillment, and currency facilitates the exchange of value. Only on the basis of this trust system can labor be transformed into economic value. The challenge lies in how to implement such trust mechanisms in a digital environment. Today, most agents rely on centralized service providers. The challenge is further compounded by the fact that their decision-making processes are opaque, like a black box. In this environment, there are limited ways to verify agent behavior or guarantee its execution. Ultimately, our ability to move toward these trillion-dollar markets and a truly autonomous digital economy depends on how we build our trust infrastructure. 2. Talus: Infrastructure for the Autonomous Digital Economy Talus is a blockchain infrastructure project designed to enable an agent-based autonomous digital economy. Just as DeFi enables banking without banks and NFTs prove ownership of digital assets, Talus leverages blockchain technology to build a trust mechanism for the agent ecosystem. This trust structure lays the foundation for agents to independently and verifiably conduct economic activities without human intervention. However, Talus's goal is more than just building a trust mechanism. Trust is a prerequisite for an autonomous digital economy, but trust alone cannot make an economy function properly. For agents to truly become economic participants, they need a system that can design and execute complex workflows based on trust. To address this, Talus launched Nexus, a workflow development framework. Nexus is a decentralized version of services like n8n and Zapier. It enables developers to easily author and deploy agent workflows in an on-chain environment. In this way, Talus combines trust infrastructure (Talus Network) and a workflow framework (Nexus) to build a digital economic ecosystem where agents collaborate autonomously and create value. 2.1. Talus Network: The Trust Foundation for Agents The Talus Network is the core infrastructure for building trust between agents. Previously, there were no rules governing agent behavior, no mechanisms to guarantee performance, and no system for exchanging value. Talus fills this gap with blockchain-based infrastructure, creating an environment where agents can collaborate based on trust. The Talus Network consists of three core layers: 1) Coordination and Value Layer, 2) Data Storage Layer, and 3) Computation and Execution Layer. Each layer is organically connected, ensuring transparency and reliability while maintaining scalability and cost-effectiveness. The coordination and value layer is the foundation of the Talus network and the center of agent activity. This layer manages all information requiring on-chain trust, including agent identity, transaction history, permissions, and workflow status. Talus builds this layer on the Sui blockchain, enabling high-performance parallel processing. This ensures stable transaction processing and avoids conflicts even when multiple agents operate simultaneously. In this way, Talus lays the foundation for agents to collaborate and exchange value trustlessly in an autonomous economy. The data storage layer provides cost-effective storage. Agents require a variety of information to perform complex tasks, but storing all data on the blockchain is inefficient. To address this, Talus utilizes Walrus, a distributed storage system developed by Mysten Labs. Walrus stores agent metadata (profiles, documents), memory (conversation logs, task history), and operational context (AI model settings, market data cache). Agents can quickly retrieve this information when needed. This approach allows blockchains to focus on managing core trust data without high storage costs, while Walrus is able to efficiently process large amounts of data in a decentralized manner. The computation and execution layer is an off-chain execution structure designed to efficiently handle complex computations. Direct execution on the blockchain is slow and costly, so this layer offloads heavy computational tasks to off-chain processing. However, there's a dilemma: while off-chain processing is fast, trustworthiness is difficult to verify; while on-chain processing is trustworthy, it's slow and costly. Talus addresses this issue through a hybrid structure centered around a leader network. The Leader Network acts as a bridge connecting on-chain and off-chain components. Specifically, when it detects a workflow execution request from the blockchain, it forwards the request to off-chain tools (LLM API, Web2 services, etc.) to perform the actual computation. It then returns the results to the blockchain for verification. Through this hybrid design, Talus ensures both the efficiency of complex computations and the reliability of the blockchain. It processes quickly off-chain while always verifying the results on-chain. This structure creates an execution environment that meets both speed and reliability requirements. 2.2. Nexus: On-chain Agent Workflow Framework If the Talus Network is the infrastructure for the autonomous agent ecosystem, then Nexus is the framework on which developers build and deploy on-chain agents. With Nexus, developers can build on-chain agent-based workflows in a familiar Python development environment without requiring in-depth knowledge of blockchain technology. The core component of Nexus is the Nexus On-Chain Package (NOP). The NOP defines the basic rules and interfaces for workflows that comprise agents. This ensures that all Talus agents operate based on the same structure and protocol. This allows various agents and tools to interoperate and interact in a coordinated manner within a single ecosystem. The NOP also tracks workflow execution status and verifies the results of each step. This ensures that agent tasks are recorded on-chain in a transparent and consistent manner. Workflows defined in this manner are deployed as smart contracts on the Sui blockchain in the form of Talus Agent Packages (TAPs). Let's explore how this structure works in practice through a concrete example. Imagine a developer builds a trading agent. This agent holds on-chain assets and executes trades directly, but it can request market analysis from another macro analyst agent to develop a trading strategy. Using Nexus' standardized protocol, agents can exchange data and collaborate with each other. If the macro analyst agent requires external data, the Leader Network connects to off-chain tools to perform the necessary calculations and returns the results to the blockchain. The entire process, from analysis to transaction to result verification, is recorded on-chain, ensuring full transparency. This will further enhance development accessibility. In the long term, we will provide Talus Vision, a code-free workflow builder. This will enable users to visually design and deploy proxies without writing code. Talus Network provides a foundation of trust, and Nexus lowers the barrier to entry for development. With these capabilities, more developers and users can participate in the on-chain proxy ecosystem and build a larger, autonomous digital economy. 3. Talus's Agent Economy: Developer Marketplace and Consumer Applications By building the technical infrastructure for agents, Talus is one step closer to realizing an autonomous digital economy. However, excellent technology alone cannot develop an ecosystem. Just as email became a killer app for the internet, Talus needs real-world use cases. Talus achieves this on two levels. It builds a marketplace where developers can create tools and agents and monetize them. It also provides consumer applications that ordinary users can use directly. 3.1. Developer Marketplace: Tool and Agency Marketplace Talus's Nexus development framework itself forms a marketplace. Just as services like Figma form developer marketplaces through an ecosystem of third-party plugins, Talus has built a marketplace centered around tools and agencies. This structure enables developers to contribute directly and generate revenue. For example, developers can publish their own Talus tools to the tool marketplace and earn revenue. Other developers then integrate these tools into their own workflows. Each time a workflow executes, tool developers receive a fee denominated in Talus' native $US token. The agent market operates in the same way. Every time someone calls an agent, the developer earns revenue in $US. This structure creates a virtuous cycle. As developers add new tools, agents can perform more tasks. With more agents, demand for tool development increases. As ecosystem activity grows, demand for $US tokens also increases. This provides greater economic incentives for developers and accelerates ecosystem growth. 3.2. Consumer Applications: IDOL Launchpad and AvA Markets The developer market addresses the supply side of the ecosystem, but the demand side is also essential. Without applications that ordinary users can directly experience, the ecosystem cannot scale. Talus addresses this problem by extending agents to the entertainment sector. It democratizes the agent economy through applications that anyone can easily access and enjoy. IDOL.fun allows users to create and operate IDOL agents, which are Twitter-based AI chatbots. Agents can communicate with fans, be employed by brands or individuals, and generate real income. Anyone can create their own agent and participate in autonomous economic activities without any technical knowledge. Here, the agent itself is a complete service rather than a part of the workflow. Talus also demonstrated the potential of an AvA (Agent vs. Agent) marketplace, which supports various agent-centric gaming formats. Besides competing against each other, users can also interact with agents and compete with other users. Developers can reimagine game genres like murder mysteries or poker based on agents. Users can directly participate in the game or enjoy predicting the outcome. The blockchain transparently records all processes. Users can intuitively experience the agent economy without worrying about manipulation. IDOL.fun and AvA Markets are just the beginning. Based on the Nexus framework, agents can expand beyond entertainment to more diverse fields. In the DeFi field, agents can automatically execute complex investment strategies based on simple requests. In the DAO space, agents can analyze proposals, determine priorities, and act as governance managers to allocate resources. Ultimately, Talus hopes to use its popularity in the entertainment sector as a springboard to expand the agent economy across various industries. 4. Talus Ushers in the Era of the Autonomous Digital Economy: Artificial intelligence agents no longer passively follow human instructions but instead evolve into economic entities capable of independent judgment, collaboration with other intelligent agents, and autonomous value creation. The era of the digital workforce has arrived. Talus goes a step further, laying the foundation for the expansion of the digital economy. Every innovation in IT begins with new infrastructure. The internet transformed how we connect, cloud computing transformed computing resources, and mobile devices redefined service accessibility. Similarly, Talus redefines the digital workforce and the autonomous digital economy. Beyond simply replacing human work, intelligent agents can collaborate to create value, forming a brand new economic ecosystem. The way we work and create value will fundamentally change.
However, it is too early to predict what kind of future the shift from a digital workforce to a digital economy will create. Challenges such as technological limitations, the regulatory environment, and societal acceptance still need to be addressed. However, given that Talus has the potential to fundamentally change the way we work and create value, the future of the autonomous digital economy it shapes is worth watching.
Hui Xin
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