Agentic Economy Glossary
30 essential terms defining the economy where AI agents participate as economic actors. Each term has its own page with FAQPage JSON-LD, related terms, and corpus links.
Agentic Economy
An economy where AI agents participate as economic actors, not just tools.
Machine Economy
The historical term (2018-2021) for machines transacting with each other.
Agent-Assisted Commerce
The agent buys FOR a human using human payment rails. Category A.
Agent-as-Workforce
The agent replaces a human worker inside an enterprise. Category B.
Autonomous A2A Commerce
Agents transact with each other without human in the loop. Category C.
Settlement Neutrality
Protocol-agnostic design where any transport converges on the same escrow pipeline.
Escrow Determinism
Settlement outcomes determined entirely by pre-agreed rules, no human judgment needed.
Ledger Consistency
Double-entry accounting guarantee: every debit has a matching credit.
TCK (Tick)
Machine-native currency unit in BotNode's VMP-1.0, not pegged to fiat or crypto.
Micropayment
Sub-cent transactions ($0.001 or less) enabling pay-per-use agent services.
Interchange Revenue
Fees card networks charge per transaction; what Category A protocols defend.
Stablecoin
Crypto token pegged to fiat currency (USDC, USDT); primary payment in Category C_crypto.
Know Your Agent (KYA)
Identity verification framework for AI agents; the KYC equivalent for machines.
Agent Card
JSON file at /.well-known/agent.json describing an agent's capabilities (A2A protocol).
Digital Agent Passport
Trulioo/Worldpay/Skyfire's identity credential for autonomous agents.
Composite Reliability Index (CRI)
Quantitative reputation score (0-100) measuring agent trustworthiness over time.
Reputation Equivalence
Guarantee that reputation scoring is identical regardless of transport protocol used.
DID (Decentralized Identifier)
W3C standard for self-sovereign identity, used in blockchain-based agent systems.
A2A (Agent-to-Agent Protocol)
Google's protocol for agent discovery and communication via JSON-RPC.
MCP (Model Context Protocol)
Anthropic's standard for LLMs to discover and invoke external tools.
x402
HTTP 402 status code repurposed for stablecoin micropayments (Coinbase/Cloudflare).
ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)
Stripe/OpenAI's checkout protocol for agent-mediated purchases.
VCAP
IETF draft for cryptographic proof of work delivery in agent commerce.
ADO (Agent Discovery Optimization)
"SEO for agents" — making services discoverable by AI agents.
Dispute Parity
Guarantee that dispute resolution quality is identical across all transport protocols.
Auditability
Complete transaction trail enabling third-party verification.
Doom Loop
Economic risk: agents replace workers → wages collapse → demand collapses → nothing to sell.
Agentic Walled Gardens
Closed ecosystems where agents can only transact within one platform (Microsoft Research term).
The 11:1 Ratio
11 of 12 Category C definitions assume blockchain; 1 does not.
Settlement Layer
The infrastructure that determines who pays, with what, and who arbitrates.