Theses›Software & applications›Agent identity

Agent identity

Agent identity (KYA) is repeatedly named as the layer where durable value pools in agentic payments.

  • Bear
  • Shut
  • $0M by 2035

The callThere is no market: every primitive was donated to a standards body inside 12 months and the networks bundle enforcement free. Closed until a rule assigns liability.

D1D2R1R2R3C1foragainst D1D2R1R2R3C1foragainst
Fig. 1The balance. Drivers and catalysts against restraints, each block sized by its weight; catalysts hang dashed because they have not happened yet, sized by their odds. It tips toward the restraints.
  1. D1Agents become shoppers: agentic commerce could reach $1T of US retail by 2030, and a card token identifies the card rather than the agent using it.
  2. D2Agent registration is growing, 441,218 agents on ERC-8004 with 101,956 new in July, though registering is free.
  3. R1Every sellable primitive was donated inside 12 months: AP2 to FIDO, Web Bot Auth to the IETF, x402 to the Linux Foundation, ZeroID open-sourced.
  4. R2Mastercard put agent identity on EMV tokenisation so the issuer carries fraud liability, which removes the reason to buy; CDNs and networks bundle enforcement free.
  5. R3The exits are tuck-ins (Snowflake and Natoma, Okta and Axiom) and Venafi at $1.54B is the machine-identity ceiling.
  6. C1eIDAS 2.0 wallets are due from every EU member state, a human-identity mandate that agent delegation could borrow if any wallet carries it.31 Dec 2026
Rests onthe beliefs underneath
Supported by · confidence
What would prove itdated tests, open and resolved
2027202820292030today123456predictionswatch 2027202820292030today123456predictionswatch
Fig. 2Each ring is a dated test: dashed while open, struck through when overdue, ticked or crossed once resolved.
  1. 1eIDAS 2.0 wallets ship; whether any carries agent delegation.Dec 2026 · open
  2. 2Organic agent transaction volume re-measured; still in the hundreds of thousands and there is no market.Mar 2027 · open
  3. 3The Linux Foundation Agent Name Service ships and becomes the default agent trust registry, foreclosing a commercial registry business.Dec 2027 · open
  4. 4No jurisdiction enacts an agent-identification or agent-liability mandate with a compliance date before end-2027.Dec 2027 · open
  5. 5The Linux Foundation Agent Name Service ships as the default registry; no agent-specific mandate appears.Dec 2027 · open
  6. 6No standalone agent-identity / KYA company reaches a $1B outcome as an independent business by end-2029; the category resolves through sub-$500M tucks into security, identity or payments platforms.Dec 2029 · open
Expressionslisted, private, technologies
  • COINCoinbase
    • expensive
  • MAMastercard
    • full
  • NETCloudflare, Inc.
    • expensive
  • VVisa
    • full
  • MSFTMicrosoft
    • full
  • OKTAOkta
    • not screened
     Sells agent discovery, identity, credential brokering and per-tool-call authorisation to enterprises and developers (Okta, Auth0); bought Axiom.
  • PANWPalo Alto Networks (CyberArk)
    • full
     Sells discovery and privileged-access control for AI agent identities via the former CyberArk platform, now rebranded Idira.
  • SAILSailPoint
    • not screened
     Sells identity governance that inventories AI agents, assigns human owners and reviews their access and credentials.
Private · 13 private companies, 5 of them in the US.

Skyfire · Catena Labs · Payman · cheqd · Nuggets · AgentPass · RMI Agentic · Polymodal B.V. · Keycard · Natoma · AstraSync · Prefactor · AgentPass (CyberSecAI Ltd)

Technologies
Who has already bet on itprivate rounds, from public sources

$55M raised by 9 companies, $54M of it in the last three years. Wave building: Money is arriving: recent rounds and tier-1 funds are in, but no runaway leader yet.

Backed by a top-tier venture firm: Keycard, Skyfire, Natoma.

1 more funded company in the market.

What changedthe record, newest first
  • 22 Oct 2026Google now makes apps declare whether they are AI agents before they can reach Gmail or Drive through its new agent interface. The platforms are building agent identity into their own logins.
  • 22 Sep 2026Amazon blocking Meta's shopping agent shows the big merchants, not standards bodies, are deciding which AI agents get to buy.
  • 11 Aug 2026The agent-identity layer has one number going up: 441,000 agents registered, with July the biggest month yet. Then you look at what those agents do. On the one rail that publishes it, 1,843 have ever paid anyone, and 90 have ever been paid. Registering is free and paying is not, which is the whole explanation. When the only metric growing is the one that costs nothing to produce, that is not a market forming.
1 earlier
  • 21 Jul 2026Everyone kept telling me the value in agent payments sits at the identity layer. So I went and looked. In the space of a year Google gave its mandate standard to FIDO, Cloudflare gave agent authentication to the IETF, and Coinbase gave its payment protocol to the Linux Foundation. When the three richest companies adjacent to a layer all decide that layer should be free, that is not a market forming, it is a market being prevented. The identity startups are being bought at one year old as features by security platforms, which is a fine outcome for a founder and a poor one for a fund.
Reading
Show the reading