Dialogue Core Foundation and Z Protocol: In the AI Agent era, will privacy finance be the next track?

This episode of Wu Shuo Podcast features early contributors to the Core Foundation, Rich Rines, and co-founder of Z Protocol, Kieran Dennis. The main discussion topics include the current strongest demands of Bitcoin holders, the necessity of combining privacy with AI agents, and how public chain projects can shift from “token narrative reliance” to “income and value recirculation” to establish sustainable business models.

Rich highlights Core’s three main growth lines as part of the Bitcoin Power Grid (“Bitcoin Power Grid”): Bitcoin yield and asset management protocols, consumer-facing new crypto banks, and reusable Satoshi Plus consensus extensions for more connected chains; Kieran explains why Z Protocol chose to enter the “Privacy + AI” track, emphasizing that AI Agents will become the main on-chain actors, and in high-frequency trading, strategy execution, and model interaction scenarios, privacy financial infrastructure will become a necessity. The two also discuss the compatibility of Zcash technology stack with Satoshi Plus consensus, the advantages of vertically integrated DeFi and AI-native applications, and believe that future on-chain value capture will rely more on buybacks, protocol revenues, and business closed-loops.

From Core to Z Protocol: Evolution of Bitcoin Yield Demands and Privacy AI Infrastructure

Ehan: Welcome to Wu Shuo Podcast. Could you please start with a brief self-introduction?

Rich: I entered the Bitcoin industry in 2013, attracted by this non-sovereign, decentralized, and censorship-resistant currency. Later, I joined Coinbase, worked there for four years, responsible for engineering related to fund flows, and witnessed the company’s transition from private to public. At that time, the industry was more focused on Ethereum, but I always paid more attention to Bitcoin, continuously pondering issues like Bitcoin scaling and yields, which ultimately led to the creation of Core. Now, Core has been running for three and a half years.

Kieran: I also entered the Bitcoin space driven by ideals of freedom, technology, free money, and open markets, and became one of the initial contributors to Core Foundation early on. After four years working at Core, I started focusing on the intersection of “Privacy + AI” in the crypto industry. As AI Agents gradually become key participants on-chain, I saw opportunities in this crossover track, which led me to found Z Protocol, aiming to enable AI Agents to act, think, learn, and build autonomously in a fully private, end-to-end manner.

This project builds on my experience at Core and has received support from many friends within the Core team. It adopts a similar security mechanism to Satoshi Plus but anchors on Zcash (ZEC) instead of Bitcoin. I hope to make it the first Satoshi Plus connected network, further expanding market space and serving as a purer expression of the crypto AI narrative.

Ehan: Rich, you once described Core as a “Bitcoin Power Grid,” emphasizing support for Bitcoin products that generate yields. What do you think is the most pressing demand among Bitcoin holders today?

Rich: Currently, there are two core demands among Bitcoin holders.

First is yield. Users want to continue earning returns with their Bitcoin and choose different strategies based on their risk preferences, such as low-risk double staking or higher-yield but riskier options.

Second is leverage. Many hope to use Bitcoin as collateral to borrow stablecoins or other assets. This demand can be summarized as asset management protocols. Since the project launched, demand in this area has grown significantly, and both retail and institutional sectors continue to expand.

Beyond that, we see another important direction: new banking services. Users want to treat Bitcoin as a savings account, also seeking collateralized loans and direct spending. In the future, truly mainstream crypto applications should resemble Web2 products more closely, with underlying layers supporting payments, yields, and lending, which will become key distribution channels.

Ehan: Kieran, what motivated you to explore Z Protocol around privacy and AI?

Kieran: The core reason is still the cypherpunk philosophy, but a more direct driver is the urgent need I see for the “Privacy + AI” crossover. As AI Agents become more important on-chain participants, their transaction frequency and activity scale will far surpass human users. If they operate on fully transparent blockchains, the risks of strategy, behavior, and identity linkage will be greatly amplified.

Therefore, I believe we shouldn’t just overlay AI functions on existing applications but should build dedicated infrastructure from the ground up for AI Agents. Z Protocol aims to provide such a set of blockchain tracks and tools suitable for Agents, enabling them not only to suggest actions but also to autonomously execute operations on behalf of users.

From the user perspective, this adds a layer of security: privacy is protected, operational complexity is reduced, and many cumbersome, error-prone on-chain processes can be delegated to Agents.

AI Agent era’s privacy financial demands and Satoshi Plus cross-ecosystem expansion

Ehan: One of your core ideas is that AI Agents need private financial tracks. Why does privacy become such a critical requirement in an economy driven by Agents?

Kieran: The most fundamental reason is scale. Human on-chain interactions typically occur a dozen times a day, but if Agents are truly running on-chain continuously, interaction frequency could reach thousands of times. As more people interact with blockchains via Agents, and the underlying chain remains fully transparent, the volume of exposed data will increase dramatically, making privacy even more crucial.

In fact, even human activities on transparent public chains already pose real risks. Transaction times, wallet balances, and other info, once identified and linked to real identities, can lead to security issues in real life. When AI Agents participate at large scale, these risks will only grow. So, if we want Agents to truly represent human actions, privacy must be built into the system from the ground up, not just added as an afterthought.

Additionally, there’s a bigger opportunity in embedding privacy into the models themselves. Whether asking models questions, receiving answers, or executing operations, end-to-end privacy protection is essential for users to truly control their data.

Ehan: This is the first time Satoshi Plus is applied outside the Bitcoin ecosystem. What do you think this means for the model itself? How will it evolve in the future?

Rich: From the start, we believed Satoshi Plus is not limited to Bitcoin. Its triple consensus mechanism is highly versatile, allowing external forces to participate in security besides native token staking. Z is its first implementation outside Bitcoin, and we believe more projects will follow.

More importantly, this expands the application boundary of Satoshi Plus and benefits CORE token holders directly. For example, Satoshi Plus connected chains like Z often have revenue-sharing mechanisms, with part of the income used for CORE buybacks.

So, we see Z as a very important starting point and look forward to more connected chains developing along this path.

Ehan: Do you think Satoshi Plus can become a reusable security layer across multiple ecosystems?

Rich: I believe it is heading in that direction. Through this connected chain model, developers can adopt this battle-tested underlying framework directly. It has handled over 500 million transactions, operated stably for three and a half years, and maintained zero downtime. Such a robust foundation allows others to modify, adapt, and launch their own chains on top.

We think this approach is better than so-called shared security models. Ecosystems like Cosmos have tried similar paths, but overall, the value capture tends to be dispersed, and sustainable mechanisms haven’t fully formed. In contrast, we favor this forking model, which can generate direct economic feedback to Core and give chains and developers enough freedom to build excellent products.

How Z connects to Core and drives the narrative of privacy and integrated DeFi expansion

Ehan: What does Z actually mean for Core? How does it connect with Core’s positioning as a “Bitcoin Power Network”?

Rich: We discussed asset management protocols and new banking services earlier. The third pillar in the revenue roadmap, which further concretizes the “Bitcoin Power Network” vision, is these connected chains.

Each connected chain has its own independent economy and demand for its native tokens. Some of this demand, whether from on-chain activity, gas fees, or other uses, will flow back into CORE through buybacks. As a result, CORE is gradually becoming a value index covering asset management, new banking, and more connected chains.

I see this as an evolution of the “Power Network” narrative. It’s no longer just about powering Bitcoin applications but providing infrastructure support for broader crypto and AI applications. This positions us uniquely and importantly in the current and future ecosystems.

Ehan: Z is built on Zcash’s privacy and staking system, using ZEC as both gas and staking assets. From a privacy perspective, why is this system a suitable foundation?

Kieran: I’ve always been a fan of Zcash because it aligns well with our privacy requirements in both philosophy and technology. It has long focused on privacy issues and continues the cypherpunk spirit.

Technically, Zcash shares the UTXO and PoW basis with Bitcoin, making it highly compatible with Satoshi Plus. Zcash miners can participate in Z Protocol’s security at low cost, and ZEC holders can stake in a trustless manner and earn yields without introducing new trust assumptions.

Moreover, although Z is not a layer 2 of Zcash, it reuses many of Zcash’s cryptographic primitives, especially in privacy pool design. Users can bridge assets into Z, hold and transfer assets privately in encrypted pools, and access various applications via stealth