What does KYA (Know Your Agent) mean?

KYA is used by different vendors to mean different things. Skyfire uses KYA for issued identity credentials: an agent registers, gets a verifiable identity token, and merchants accept it at checkout. AsterPay uses KYA for on-chain trust scoring: any agent wallet is scored 0-100 from observable evidence (wallet history, ERC-8004 identity, sanctions screening, operator KYB) with no registration required. Credentials answer 'who issued this agent an ID'; scoring answers 'what does the chain say about this agent right now'.

Is AsterPay's KYA trust score free?

Yes. GET https://x402.asterpay.io/v1/agent/trust-score/{address} is free and requires no authentication. It returns a 0-100 score, tier, component breakdown and recommended exposure limits. AsterPay also publishes its KYA assessments to the Intuition knowledge graph on-chain.

Do Skyfire and AsterPay compete?

Only at the margins today. Skyfire is US-centric and sells agent identity plus card-style checkout through enterprise channel partners. AsterPay is EU-centric and sells trust scoring plus EUR settlement on x402/MPP rails. An agent could carry a Skyfire credential and still be scored by AsterPay before an EU settlement — the layers are compatible.

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AsterPay vs Skyfire — two meanings of “Know Your Agent”

Updated 15 July 2026 · 6 minute read · By Petteri, Co-founder

Short answer Both companies use the acronym KYA, and they mean different things. Skyfire's KYA is an issued credential: an agent registers with Skyfire, receives a verifiable identity, and merchants accept it — distributed through US enterprise channels. AsterPay's KYA is an on-chain trust score: any agent wallet, registered or not, is scored 0–100 from observable evidence (wallet history, ERC-8004 identity, sanctions lists, operator KYB) at payment time, before EUR settlement. Credentials tell you who vouched for the agent; scoring tells you what the chain says about it right now. The layers are compatible, not interchangeable.

What each one is

Skyfire (US, $9.5M seed) builds an identity and payment layer for AI agents: agents register to receive KYA identity credentials, carry spending wallets, and check out at merchant endpoints, including card-style flows. Skyfire's distribution strategy runs through enterprise infrastructure vendors (its F5 partnership being the flagship example), putting it in front of large US enterprises without direct sales to each one.

AsterPay, operated by AELIRA LTD (Cyprus), runs the production KYA trust scorer for the x402 ecosystem: a free, no-auth endpoint that scores any agent wallet 0–100 using wallet age and activity, ERC-8004 on-chain identity, Chainalysis sanctions screening, operator KYB and behavioural history. The score gates AsterPay's own EUR settlement rail (SEPA Instant, 0.5% + €0.10) and is published to the Intuition knowledge graph, so the assessment is portable and publicly verifiable rather than locked inside one vendor's API.

Side-by-side comparison

Capability	Skyfire	AsterPay
KYA model	Issued identity credential (register first)	Evidence-based score (works on any wallet)
Coverage of unregistered agents	Not covered	Scored from on-chain evidence
Identity standard	Proprietary credential	ERC-8004 (open standard) + published to Intuition graph
Sanctions screening per payment	At registration/account level	Per call, Chainalysis
Payment rails	Skyfire wallet, card-style checkout	x402 + MPP, stablecoins on Base et al.
Fiat settlement	USD-centric	EUR via SEPA Instant (<10 s)
Regulatory focus	US	EU (MiCA-aligned via licensed partners)
Distribution	Enterprise channel partners (F5)	Agent directories, MCP, SDKs, partner program
Trust score API pricing	Enterprise contract	Free, no auth
Funding	$9.5M seed	Bootstrapped

Where Skyfire wins

You are a US enterprise whose infra vendor (e.g. F5) already ships Skyfire integration
You want agents to carry an issued, revocable corporate credential rather than be judged on wallet history
You need card-style checkout flows for agents inside a US regulatory perimeter
Vendor financial backing matters to your procurement process

Where AsterPay wins

You need to assess any agent that shows up — most x402 traffic comes from wallets that never registered anywhere
You want the assessment anchored to open standards (ERC-8004) and publicly verifiable on-chain (Intuition graph), not a proprietary credential
You are an EU merchant and the trust check must gate an actual EUR settlement, not just an identity handshake
You want per-call sanctions screening in the payment path
You want to try it now, free, without a sales call: GET /v1/agent/trust-score/{address}

Why the two KYAs are compatible

Identity credentials and trust scoring solve different halves of the same problem. A credential says: a known issuer vouches for this agent's operator. A score says: the observable record of this wallet, right now, supports this level of exposure. A mature agent-commerce stack will want both — exactly as human finance uses both passports (credentials) and credit scores (behavioural evidence). An agent carrying a Skyfire credential can still be scored by AsterPay before an EU merchant accepts its money. Nothing about the two products is mutually exclusive; only the geographies and rails differ today.

Bottom line

Skyfire owns issued agent credentials in the US enterprise channel. AsterPay owns evidence-based agent scoring on open standards in the EU settlement path. If your question is “can I trust this wallet enough to take its money as euros” — that is AsterPay's KYA, and the score endpoint is free.