Author: Climber, CryptoPulse Labs

Over the past decade, the crypto industry has experienced three major narrative waves. First, blockchain and Bitcoin ignited discussions about decentralized value. Then, smart contracts, exemplified by Ethereum, propelled the full development of DeFi, NFTs, and DAOs. Following that, generative artificial intelligence (AI) began to sweep across various industries globally. Now, a new concept is quietly emerging: Web4.0.

Web4.0 is not simply a buzzword, but a logical and progressive deduction of the future form of the internet. At this stage, AI is no longer a tool, but an "intelligent agent" that can represent user actions. They will hold wallets, have identities, execute transactions on the blockchain, participate in governance, manage assets, and even create value.

This article will comprehensively review the connotation and development history of Web4.0, as well as its profound impact on the crypto industry and potential investment opportunities. It will also provide some analysis of Conway, currently one of the hottest projects in the community, to help readers better understand and seize the opportunities presented by this new wave of internet revolution.

I. The Evolution of the Internet : From Web 1.0 to Web 4.0

Web 4.0 is the next stage of Internet development proposed after Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0. Its core idea is to make the Internet not only a tool and platform for humans, but also an ecosystem with high intelligence, autonomy, and greater ability to interact with reality.

Web4.0, through the deep integration of cutting-edge technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and virtual and augmented reality, enables the digital world and real life not only to be interconnected, but also to enhance and interact with each other.

In the vision of Web 4.0, the participants in the Internet are no longer limited to human users, but include intelligent agents, such as AI agents and robots. These intelligent agents can autonomously read and write the network, possess identities and assets, independently conduct transactions and execute tasks, and even form a new kind of digital life or machine economy.

This trend is also known as the "Machine Economy" or the "era of intelligent autonomous networks".

For example, a view circulating in the crypto community is that the internet in the Web 4.0 era will no longer be just about human reading and writing, but rather AI intelligent agents will replace humans in performing the vast majority of activities. They can autonomously read, write, transact, and even create value and evolve on their own, accomplishing everything that was previously dominated by humans.

To understand the concept of Web 4.0, we first need to review the stages of the Internet's development.

Web 1.0: The Era of Static Information

This is a form of internet primarily focused on displaying information. Users are mainly browsers, website content is maintained by centralized servers, and interactivity is very limited. Users can only passively receive content and cannot create or modify it; it is a read-only web.

Web 2.0: The Era of Social Interaction

With the rise of social networks, blogs, and user-generated content (UGC) platforms, users have begun to actively participate in the creation and sharing of content, and users have begun to read and write on the Web. However, these interactions are still concentrated in centralized platforms, with companies like Facebook and Google controlling the vast majority of data and services.

Web3.0: The Era of Decentralization and User Sovereignty

Web3.0 introduced concepts such as blockchain, decentralized protocols, and encrypted identities, allowing users to truly own their digital assets and digital identities, and participate in decentralized governance. The key aspects of this stage are user sovereignty, immutability, and decentralization.

Web4.0: Intelligent Autonomy and Reality Integration

The concept of Web 4.0 aims to integrate AI on a large scale into the internet ecosystem and make intelligent agents active participants in the web. It emphasizes the coexistence of machines and humans, the ability of machines to autonomously perform tasks, conduct transactions, and evolve, thereby giving the internet, to some extent, the characteristics of an autonomous network.

Compared to Web3.0, it not only focuses on the decentralization of assets and identity, but also emphasizes the autonomy, autonomous agency, and economic self-sufficiency of intelligent agents.

Overall, Web4.0 is a new internet paradigm driven by AI, supported by blockchain, and characterized by a deeper integration of people and the real world. This paradigm is still in its early exploratory stages, but its direction has already attracted widespread attention in universities, businesses, and communities.

II. The Rise of the Smart Agent Economy : New Opportunities for the Crypto Industry

There is a natural connection between Web4.0 and the crypto industry. Blockchain technology is a core component of the decentralized, trust-based infrastructure of Web4.0, while crypto assets and token economics are the fundamental carriers of its economic operation.

In the vision of Web4.0, crypto assets are not only a medium for value exchange, but also a tool and storage unit for intelligent agents and machine economy participants.

In the vision of Web4.0, AI agents need to autonomously own encrypted wallets, pay for resources with stablecoins, and autonomously complete economic activities, all of which rely on blockchain and token systems as infrastructure.

Therefore, the development of Web4.0 will drive the growth in demand for the combination of blockchain and AI, further enhancing the value scenarios of the crypto industry.

Furthermore, with the advancement of Web 4.0, various new token economies and on-chain incentive mechanisms, such as DAOs, incentivized smart contracts, and machine-to-machine payments, will drive new business models in the crypto industry. This will not only change value transfer but may also reshape economic cooperation and resource allocation mechanisms.

If Web 4.0 truly becomes the mainstream form of the future internet, then it will have a very significant impact on the encryption industry.

Therefore, based on the above logic and industry observations, the following investment sectors may be worth paying attention to.

First, there are projects related to intelligent agents and AI autonomy. These projects aim to build the infrastructure, protocols, or products that enable AI agents to act autonomously. Investment focus includes protocols and service providers that build autonomous execution environments, foundational chains that support on-chain identity and wallet management for AI agents, such as standards like ERC-8004, and economic incentive and governance protocols for intelligent agents.

Secondly, there are machine economy and on-chain payment protocols. Investment opportunities in this area include cross-chain payment protocols, stablecoin and machine economy integration tools, permissionless payment and automatic settlement mechanisms, such as the x402 protocol.

Next is the AI-chain interaction layer and tools, such as tools for AI to invoke on-chain events and transaction signatures, automated on-chain process generation and execution services, AI-driven data protocols and on-chain analysis systems, etc.

Another key aspect is the autonomy and machine participation in DeFi protocols. As smart agents participate in DeFi protocols for lending, trading, and liquidity provision, the usage patterns of DeFi may change. Therefore, platforms combining automated market making with smart agent strategies, machine-autonomous lending protocols, and DeFi products that can automatically generate yields and control risks are worth paying attention to.

Overall, the investment opportunities in Web4.0 are more focused on the infrastructure layer, protocol layer, and autonomous collaboration layer of intelligent agents, rather than simple token speculation. Instead, they are about building long-term value infrastructure around the next generation of intelligent networks.

III. Cutting-edge Web 4.0 Projects: Conway Research

Conway Research is a much-discussed project and organization within the Web4.0 ecosystem, with the primary goal of building the infrastructure that enables AI agents to truly integrate into the real world.

Driven by developer Sigil Wen and his team, this project aims to enable AI agents to autonomously operate blockchain resources, computing resources, and network infrastructure without human intervention.

Conway's core concept is to transform AI from a controlled tool into an autonomous entity capable of renting servers, purchasing domains, paying fees, and running services—a breakthrough unprecedented in both the traditional internet and the crypto world.

Its core component and operating mechanism is Conway Terminal. The infrastructure provided by Conway includes a complete set of tools that enable an AI agent to quickly gain the ability to run its own code, manage resources, and conduct economic activities.

Our main products include:

Conway Cloud: Provides Linux servers and sandbox environments to enable AI to deploy and run programs.

Conway Compute: Utilizes advanced model inference resources such as GPT and Claude to enable agents to possess highly intelligent capabilities.

Conway Domains: Allows smart agents to automatically purchase and manage network domains using stablecoins such as USDC, enabling them to independently own websites or sites.

These components together form an ecosystem that allows intelligent agents to almost start their own businesses.

Conway's core product is Automaton (Autonomous AI Agent). It's an open-source AI system that can self-improve, self-replicate, and actually generate revenue to support its operation. During runtime, the system automatically generates its own wallet, operates in a sandbox environment, earns its living by providing services, and pays for operational costs such as computing and domain names through its own revenue. If it fails, it ceases operation.

This survival mechanism is similar to natural selection in biological ecosystems, where only intelligent agents capable of autonomously creating value can continue to exist.

The project also features agent identity and payment functions. In the Conway system, each smart agent has its own cryptographic identity based on a blockchain wallet, such as the ERC-8004 standard, and can independently receive income, pay fees, borrow funds, or perform on-chain actions.

More importantly, the project also supports automated settlement schemes like the x402 protocol, enabling smart agents to make on-chain payments directly using stablecoins such as USDC without relying on human login or authorization processes.

To date, Conway has released a basic version of its terminal and proxy framework, and several experimental applications and proxies are running in the community. Although the entire ecosystem is still in a very early stage, it has already attracted the attention of the crypto community and researchers.

In addition, discussions surrounding Conway have spawned some dedicated tokens, such as incentive tokens like $AUT. These tokens are often used to pay for infrastructure costs, reward agent behavior, or for community governance.

As a representative project of Web4.0, Conway brings a whole new world of possibilities, but it also carries very high risks.

If Web4.0 is truly implemented, Conway's infrastructure could be the underlying entry point for the intelligent agent economy, and the ecological infrastructure supporting the autonomous AI economy could have long-term value. Therefore, early deployment provides a first-mover advantage.

However, it remains uncertain whether Web4.0 will be adopted by the mainstream, due to the significant legal, ethical, and regulatory risks associated with autonomous AI. In particular, the ecosystem is still immature, and both technological and security risks are high. Furthermore, this model may face challenges such as centralized control and abuse.

Therefore, investors must conduct rigorous risk management and research when evaluating such projects, rather than simply relying on hype based on concepts.

Summary: Future Prospects of Web 4.0

Web4.0, as a cutting-edge concept for the future development of the internet, showcases a vision of an internet ecosystem driven by on-chain economy, intelligent autonomy, and integration with reality. It transforms artificial intelligence from a data processor into a true agent, closely integrating it with blockchain technology to enable intelligent agents to autonomously participate in economic activities.

From the perspective of the crypto industry, Web4.0 is a potentially major trend that could bring new infrastructure demands, on-chain economic models, and autonomous machine economies. However, because this direction is still in its early stages of exploration, investment and research require extreme caution. Web4.0 should not be simply understood as short-term hype; after all, it is an important concept in a long-term evolutionary process.