Kite (KITE) is the native token of Kite Chain, an EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain built by Kite AI for autonomous AI agent payments. The token functions as gas, staking collateral, and a governance instrument on the network. Kite Chain's mainnet launched April 30, 2026, alongside Kite Agent Passport, a programmable wallet and identity system that lets AI agents transact under user-defined spending rules.
For trading and liquidity, KITE also exists as a LayerZero omnichain fungible token with live contract instances on Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Avalanche C-Chain, and HyperEVM.
Kite differentiates itself by targeting agent-to-agent commerce rather than general-purpose smart contracts, building identity and spending-rule verification directly into the chain through Kite Agent Passport. It positions itself as an interoperability hub for emerging agent-payment standards, including Coinbase's x402, Google's AP2, Stripe's Machine Payment Protocol, and Anthropic's Model Context Protocol.
KITE captures this positioning economically: network security depends on validator staking rather than speculative activity alone, tying token demand directly to agent-payment infrastructure usage.
KITE is both a utility and governance token. As a utility token, it pays gas fees on Kite Chain and serves as the staking asset for network security: validators must stake a minimum of 1,000,000 KITE, while delegators stake KITE to back validators or module owners they support.
Module owners use KITE-denominated incentives to develop and manage AI-service modules on the network. KITE also functions as a governance token, giving holders a voice in network decision-making.
KITE has a hard-capped maximum supply of 10 billion tokens, of which approximately 9.76 billion were minted as of 2026-08-31. Circulating supply is approximately 2.4 billion KITE.
Team and investor allocations vest over four years on a sub-linear schedule. Because nearly all tokens are minted at genesis against the fixed cap, net supply dynamics are disinflationary: circulating supply grows only as vesting unlocks predetermined allocations, with no new issuance beyond the cap.
KITE's token generation event occurred November 3, 2025, with simultaneous listings on Binance, OKX, Upbit, Coinbase, Bitget, and Bybit. Binance ran a HODLer Airdrop and Launchpool ahead of listing. Initial circulating supply was 1.8 billion KITE (18% of max supply), debuting at a $159 million market cap and $883 million fully diluted valuation.
Kite AI, formerly known as Zettablock, raised an $18 million Series A in September 2025 led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst, bringing cumulative funding to $33 million. The current Ethereum token contract was deployed via migration on 2026-08-12, well after the TGE.
Kite operates its own EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain, Kite Chain, secured by Proof-of-Stake consensus with validators (minimum stake of 1,000,000 KITE) and delegators who back them.
Kite AI was co-founded by Chi Zhang (CEO), who holds a PhD in AI from UC Berkeley and previously led core data products at Databricks. Scott Shi (CTO) built real-time AI infrastructure at Uber and was a founding engineer on Salesforce's Einstein AI.
The company was formerly known as Zettablock, where the founding team built real-time data infrastructure for decentralized networks including Sui, Polygon, Chainlink, and EigenLayer. Key investors include PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst, which led the company's Series A.
Kite AI (gokite.ai), a US-based AI-infrastructure company formerly known as Zettablock, develops and maintains Kite Chain and the KITE token. The organization describes its mission as building the AI payment blockchain: infrastructure for autonomous AI agents to transact with verifiable identity, programmable governance, and native stablecoin payment access.
Kite AI launched Kite Chain's mainnet and the Kite Agent Passport identity system on April 30, 2026.
KITE functions as the network's staking, incentive, and governance token, with holders voting on protocol upgrades, incentive structures, and module performance requirements. Three roles participate: module owners who manage AI-service modules, validators who run Proof-of-Stake consensus, and delegators who stake KITE to back the modules or validators they support.
Roughly 64% of total token allocation has been described as earmarked for future DAO management, indicating an intended transition toward decentralized governance.
Kite Chain's mainnet and the Kite Agent Passport programmable wallet and identity system launched April 30, 2026. The network integrated Coinbase's x402 Agent Payment Standard natively from day one and has positioned itself to support Google's AP2, Stripe's Machine Payment Protocol, and Anthropic's Model Context Protocol as interoperable agent-payment rails.
In June 2026, Kite extended agentic payment settlement to the Solana blockchain via the x402 standard.
Halborn conducted multiple security audits of Kite's contracts, including a token smart-contract audit in October 2025 covering the OpenZeppelin-based ERC-20 contract. A separate GoKite Contracts audit in September 2025 covered account-abstracted wallet subnet creation and an airdrop contract, with most findings remediated. Additional Halborn audits covering core contracts (2025) and staking and rewards (2026) have also been listed.
Kite AI has not been audited by CertiK. A public bug-bounty repository exists on GitHub. On Ethereum, the top 10 holder wallets hold 67% of supply, and DEX liquidity relative to market capitalization is comparatively low.