TRON DAO has significantly increased the size of its artificial intelligence fund from $100 million to $1 billion, aiming to support early-stage startups focused on building foundational infrastructure for the emerging agentic economy.

The expanded fund, announced Monday, will allocate capital across four key areas: identity systems for AI agents, payment infrastructure based on stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and developer tools designed for autonomous financial systems.

This move builds on TRON DAO’s strategic outlook established in 2023, which anticipates that stablecoins will become the primary medium of exchange between AI agents, serve as a default payment layer for “AI-augmented people,” and support the growth of tokenized equity markets.

Growing competition in the agentic AI ecosystem

TRON’s initiative reflects a broader trend among blockchain ecosystems and financial players investing in AI-driven payment systems. Networks such as Solana and Base have also been expanding into this space, alongside traditional firms like Visa, Stripe and World.

The Ethereum ecosystem has taken a different approach. In September, the Ethereum Foundation launched its “dAI Team,” with the goal of positioning Ethereum as the “preferred settlement and coordination layer” for AI agents and the wider machine economy. Unlike TRON, Ethereum is focusing more on trust and coordination rather than transaction efficiency, emphasizing decentralization over speed and low fees.

Infrastructure and scaling for machine-driven transactions

TRON argues that its existing network infrastructure is well-suited for supporting the agentic economy. The blockchain currently reports 370 million user accounts, over $21 billion in daily transaction volume, and more than $85 billion in circulating USDT.

Founder Justin Sun previously highlighted that many AI agent use cases involve frequent, low-value transactions, making speed and cost efficiency critical. He noted that TRON’s average transaction confirmation time is around three seconds, compared to roughly 12 seconds on Ethereum, which he said makes it more suitable for high-frequency activity.

Sun also pointed to the importance of scaling infrastructure as AI adoption grows beyond niche applications into widespread machine-to-machine commerce. “To support this shift, infrastructure is beginning to develop around the ecosystem,” he continued, referencing a newly introduced AI agent framework on TRON called AINFT, designed to help developers build and deploy autonomous agents.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/tron-dao-expands-ai-fund-1b-agentic-economy-race-heats-up

https://x.com/DavideCrapis/status/1967573374911340975

https://x.com/trondao/status/2036150400273821699

https://app.artemisanalytics.com/asset/x402