Robonomics on the threshold: Economic autonomy, smart cities, and crypto wallets for humanoids

Capital itself is a sufficient form of robotic governance, analysts speculated at the AI ​​Robotics Alliance of America, or AIRA, summit in June. The essence lies in the overall reduction of transaction costs by ensuring the autonomy of the machines, they suggested.

But as soon as you move from theory to practice, you hit a wall of fundamental questions, noted analyst Sergey Lonshakov. In Germany, for example, specialists still debate what cyber-physical systems actually are, as the academic definition of “robot” remains vague.

The Coase rule still applies to the cyber-physical era

Economics hates a vacuum. We live according to the paradigm described by Ronald Coase: a company exists as long as it costs less to produce internally than to buy components on the market.

If we apply this principle to robotic arms or swarms of drones, robotics startups emerge. As soon as such a system autonomously enters the market, we get agency. And there is no more effective indicator than price.

But what happens when it’s not a factory machine that enters the market, but a humanoid living in your home?

Editor’s Note: Physical AI is one of the topics covered in the RoboBusiness 2026 session, which will be held on October 20 and 21 in Santa Clara, California. Register now to participate.

The harsh reality of B2C: why a robot can’t cost as much as a BMW

For a long time, robotics has been the domain of business to business (B2B). Engineers created systems for BMW factories, where reliability and predictability were paramount.

But now a turning point has come: the same specialists must build robots that work in our homes and perhaps work on the Moon. It’s the same evolutionary stage as cell phones before the Apple era: functional, but ugly and inconvenient.

The main problem is the price. You can’t charge a high price for a humanoid assistant – that would push the mass market into the luxury segment.

Most manufacturers know there is huge demand for devices in the €1,000 to €1,500 ($1,136.8 to $1,705.3 US) range, such as Amazon’s mobile platform with a periscope to check if the stove is off. But to reach that price point, you need to rethink your entire development philosophy.

The adaptability of technology to the human factor is more important today than the precision of servo controls.

The Battle for the Wallet: Cryptocurrencies vs. Bank Accounts

When we talk about economic autonomy for robotics, a question inevitably arises: how do you pay for a robot?

In 2026, John Anderson and other futurists are actively promoting the idea of ​​crypto wallets. No one will open a traditional bank account for a robot – it is not a legal entity.

However, a wallet on the Bitcoin or Ethereum network is automatically generated, and the network validates payments independently. For businesses and entrepreneurs this is “perfectly clear”.

But here a legal collapse occurs. Baker McKenzie lawyers point out that no European jurisdiction will accept the economic autonomy of robots in contract law. The classic scheme involves a promisor, who assumes an obligation, and a beneficiary, who assigns the obligation.

If a person lays tiles badly, the judge examines the reasons: did he try? Were there extenuating circumstances? With a robot this is impossible. His goal setting is, to the court, simply a “collapse.”

Furthermore, if the device is the result of the work of dozens of teams – a supply chain – then in case of failure no one can be held responsible.

The “Great Fork of 2025”:

1. The part of the optimists (Silicon Valley): Generate a wallet, start a Twitter bot, collect satoshis.
2. The side of the realists (Europe): We need to define the nature of goal setting. The responsibility lies neither with the manufacturer nor with the robot.

As we search for answers, another fear emerges. In multisegmented neural models that reconfigure on the fly, we are getting closer to understanding our brains, as in large behavioral models, not just language models.

If a robot becomes so complex that we can no longer distinguish its malfunction from “fatigue” or “lack of energy”, will we descend into anthropomorphism? The android could say in court: “I didn’t have enough satoshi, so I couldn’t finish laying the tiles, forgive me.” It sounds great, but the complexity of the system is leading us in this direction.

The problem of proof: was the courier there?

One of the oldest and most painful problems in logistics is the dispute: “I called, but you weren’t there.” In the world of robotics, this becomes a key arbitration challenge.

In 2017, an idea called proof of location (FOAM) was born: triangulating location via towers so that a smart contract only releases payment to a courier upon confirmation of arrival. The idea never took off.

Experts are now pinning their hopes on observation networks, which are already being implemented in smart cities. These are not just street cameras for issuing fines, but sensors that record movements.

The robot itself can generate data such as video from cameras or trackers, but the difference compared to humans is colossal. We trust humans by default because of reputation – we are taught not to lie from childhood). A robot, essentially, must provide irrefutable digital evidence.

No significant progress has yet been made in decentralized verification. But if sensor networks were built on open technologies rather than black boxes, we will be able to track the meta-operations of machines – something that would be “nonsense” for a human, like reporting arrival at work at 9:05. Machines can and should be transparent.

Why robotics hardware is still a pain

Unlike software, where you can quickly build a prototype, the world of robotics hardware is brutal. An error in the trace of a PCB (printed circuit board) can cost months of work.

Real-life example: A company has evolved from the concept of sensor networks to building real devices. The result of this evolution was the abandonment of “vague” B2G (business-to-government) projects in favor of a concrete line of home devices.

There is a trend towards decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) and open source. Today we see demand for devices that don’t depend on Amazon’s cloud. Users are tired of subscriptions and data loss when a service goes down.

Here are some real products you can buy right now:

1. Smart Home Server (on open platform)
2. Air quality sensors (tested and working for years)
3. Energy monitoring (integration with Energy Web Foundation)

Today, it’s easier to go to a crypto conference and buy a physical device for your home (including switches, remotes, and speakers without “cloud” lock) than to open a bank account. Visually, it’s reminiscent of the early 2010s with DIY kits, but now with a serious emphasis on privacy and Polkadot for storing user lists. The goal is to provide a person with a cryptographic key that they use to manage access to their devices.

Don’t despair over the economics of robotics

The economic autonomy of robots will not arrive tomorrow. The main obstacle is not technology, but law and arbitration. We cannot answer the question: “Who is to blame if a robot makes a mistake?” Until the matter is resolved judicially, there will be no mass “robot hiring”.

But we are on the threshold of a change in daily life. Smart homes are moving away from being corporate “black boxes” and into open source ecosystems. Cities are becoming more convenient, but privacy is the price we pay.

The world is changing, and the key intrigue of 2026 is: will we be able to build an ecosystem of smart devices that works for us, not for companies, and what will we do when a robot asks us for satoshis to finish hemming the curtains?

About the author

Elena Krosheva is a freelance journalist, marketing analyst and SEO specialist. She graduated with honors from the Faculty of Journalism of the Institute of Modern Knowledge in Minsk, Belarus, in 2007.

Krosheva covers topics such as digitalisation, IT, modern economics and transhumanism. She loves computers and cyberpunk, having graduated from a technical institute before graduating from the Faculty of Journalism.