Deep Dive into Talus: How Digital Workforce Is Changing the Way We Work

Author: Jay Jo, Source: Tiger Research

This report is authored by Tiger Research and explores how Talus is building an autonomous digital economy system through blockchain-based AI agent trust infrastructure.

Key Highlights

• Artificial Intelligence agents (AI agents) have evolved from simple tools into independent economic entities, opening possibilities for an “autonomous digital economy.” However, realizing this vision requires infrastructure capable of verifying agent actions and ensuring trust.
• Talus has built this trust infrastructure. The Talus Network enables verification of agent operations via blockchain, while Nexus allows developers to easily create and deploy on-chain agents.
• In this way, Talus extends digital labor into the digital economy. It changes how we work and create value, preparing for the transition to an autonomous economic era.

1. Preconditions for the Autonomous Digital Economy

AI agents (hereafter “agents”) as “digital workers” are increasingly gaining attention. They can autonomously understand complex situations, make independent judgments, and execute tasks. Trading agents can handle transactions on behalf of users within milliseconds. Customer support agents utilize historical customer data and product information to handle thousands of inquiries simultaneously. Agents are becoming new economic entities that create value independently, surpassing simple tools that only follow commands.

This development opens the door to a new paradigm—the “autonomous digital economy.” This paradigm envisions a fully autonomous economic ecosystem where agents can directly trade and collaborate with other agents or users without human intervention. Once realized, this will create 24/7 efficient markets that surpass human labor limits. It will give rise to new markets that currently do not exist but could grow to trillions of dollars.

Source: Tiger Research

However, this remains an ideal goal. Agents need trust mechanisms to verify their actions and outcomes. Without these, they cannot independently conduct economic activities. This need reflects the requirements of real-world economies. Human labor evolved from simple actions into economic activities because society established institutional foundations. Legal norms regulate behavior, contracts ensure fulfillment, and currency facilitates value exchange. Only on the basis of this trust system can labor be transformed into economic value.

The question is how to realize such trust mechanisms in a digital environment. Today, most agents rely on centralized service providers. Their decision-making processes are opaque like black boxes. This further complicates the challenge. In such environments, methods to verify agent behavior or guarantee execution are limited. Ultimately, whether we can move toward these trillions of dollars markets and a truly autonomous digital economy depends on how we build trust infrastructure.

2. Talus: Infrastructure for the Autonomous Digital Economy

Source: Tiger Research

Talus is a blockchain infrastructure project aimed at enabling an agent-based autonomous digital economy. Just as DeFi has achieved banking services without banks, and NFTs have proved ownership of digital assets, Talus uses blockchain technology to build trust mechanisms for the agent ecosystem. This trust structure lays the foundation for agents to independently and verifiably conduct economic activities without human intervention.

However, Talus’s goal is not limited to building trust mechanisms. Trust is a prerequisite for the autonomous digital economy, but trust alone cannot keep the economy running smoothly. For agents to truly participate as economic actors, they need a system capable of designing and executing complex workflows based on trust. To address this, Talus has launched Nexus, a workflow development framework. Nexus is a decentralized version of services like n8n or Zapier. It allows developers to easily write and deploy agent workflows within on-chain environments.

By combining this trust infrastructure (Talus Network) with the workflow framework (Nexus), Talus aims to create a digital economy ecosystem where agents autonomously collaborate and generate value.

2.1. Talus Network: The Trust Foundation for Agents

The Talus Network is the core infrastructure for establishing trust among agents. Previously, there were no rules to regulate agent behavior, no mechanisms to guarantee performance, and no systems to exchange value. Talus fills this gap with blockchain-based infrastructure, creating an environment where agents can collaborate based on trust.

The Talus Network consists of three core layers: 1) Coordination and Value Layer, 2) Data Storage Layer, 3) Computation and Execution Layer. These layers are interconnected to ensure transparency and reliability while maintaining scalability and cost efficiency.

The Coordination and Value Layer is the foundation of the Talus Network and the center of agent activities. It manages all on-chain trust information, including agent identities, transaction histories, permissions, and workflow statuses. Built on the Sui blockchain, this layer achieves high-performance parallel processing. Even with multiple agents operating simultaneously, it guarantees stable transaction processing and conflict avoidance. This setup provides a trusted environment for agents to collaborate and exchange value in an autonomous economic setting.

The Data Storage Layer offers economical storage solutions. Agents require various data to handle complex tasks, but storing everything on the blockchain is inefficient. To solve this, Talus uses Walrus, a distributed storage system developed by Mysten Labs. Walrus stores agent metadata (config files, documents), memory (dialogue logs, task histories), and operational contexts (AI model settings, market data caches). Agents can quickly retrieve this information when needed. This approach allows the blockchain to focus on managing core trust data, avoiding high storage costs, while Walrus efficiently handles large-scale data in a decentralized manner.

The architecture of Nexus and the operation flow of the Talus Agentic Framework are sourced from Talus.

The Computation and Execution Layer is an off-chain execution structure designed for efficient processing of complex calculations. Executing heavy computations directly on the blockchain is slow and costly, so this layer shifts such tasks off-chain. However, this introduces a challenge: off-chain processing is fast but difficult to verify for trustworthiness; on-chain processing is trustworthy but slow and expensive. Talus addresses this with a hybrid structure centered around the Leader Network. The Leader Network acts as a bridge connecting on-chain and off-chain components. Specifically, when it detects a workflow execution request from the blockchain, it forwards the request to off-chain tools (like LLM APIs, Web2 services) for actual computation. It then returns the results to the blockchain for verification.

This hybrid design ensures both computational efficiency and blockchain reliability. It enables fast off-chain processing while always verifying results on-chain. This creates an environment that meets both speed and trustworthiness requirements.

(# 2.2. Nexus: On-Chain Agent Workflow Framework

If the Talus Network is the infrastructure of the autonomous agent ecosystem, then Nexus is the framework for developers to build and deploy on-chain agents. With Nexus, developers can construct workflows based on on-chain agents within a familiar Python environment, without needing deep blockchain expertise.

![])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-7ed623a65bd4d09e527762b5ab41814c.webp###

The relationship between different smart contract packages within Nexus and developer roles is sourced from Talus.

The core component of Nexus is the Nexus on-chain package (NOP). The NOP defines the basic rules and interfaces for workflows that compose agents. This ensures all Talus agents operate based on the same structure and protocols. This way, various agents and tools can interoperate and interact within a unified ecosystem in a coordinated manner. NOP also tracks workflow execution status and verifies each step’s results, ensuring transparent and consistent on-chain recording of agent tasks. Workflows defined in this manner are deployed as Talus agent packages (TAP) within smart contracts on the Sui blockchain.

Let’s explore how this structure functions in practice with a concrete example. Suppose a developer creates a trading agent. This agent holds on-chain assets and executes trades directly, but it can request market analysis from a macro analyst agent to formulate trading strategies. Thanks to Nexus’s standardized protocol, agents can exchange data and collaborate. If the macro analyst agent needs external data, the Leader Network connects off-chain tools for necessary calculations and returns results to the blockchain. The entire process—from analysis to trading to result verification—is recorded on-chain, ensuring full transparency.

A visual demonstration of Talus, sourced from Talus.

Accessibility in development will be further enhanced. In the long term, Talus will offer a no-code workflow builder called Talus Vision. This will enable users to design and deploy agents visually without coding. The Talus Network provides the trust foundation, while Nexus lowers the development barrier. With these, more developers and users can participate in the on-chain agent ecosystem, building a larger autonomous digital economy.

( 3. Talus’s Agent Economy: Developer Marketplace and Consumer Applications

![])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-45a6368f1237aa8857135fa49364173a.webp###

Source: Tiger Research

Talus brings the infrastructure for agents closer to realizing an autonomous digital economy, but excellent technology alone cannot develop the ecosystem. Just as the internet became widespread through email as a killer app, Talus also needs practical use cases. Talus achieves this on two levels: it builds a marketplace where developers can create tools and agents and profit from them, and it offers consumer-grade applications that ordinary users can directly use.

(# 3.1. Developer Marketplace: Tools and Agent Marketplace

The Nexus development framework itself forms a marketplace. Similar to how services like Figma have built a third-party plugin ecosystem, Talus has created a marketplace centered on tools and agents. This structure allows developers to contribute directly and earn revenue.

![])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-b6e576d853616400c8f98f18aad210ac.webp###

For example, developers can publish their Talus tools to the marketplace to earn income. Other developers can integrate these tools into their workflows. Each time a workflow runs, the tool developer receives a usage fee priced in Talus native tokens (. The agent marketplace operates similarly. Every time someone calls an agent, the developer earns income in ).

This structure creates a virtuous cycle. As developers add new tools, agents can perform more tasks. As more agents emerge, demand for tool development increases. With growing ecosystem activity, demand for USD tokens also rises. This provides greater economic incentives for developers and accelerates ecosystem growth.

$US # 3.2. Consumer Applications: IDOL Launchpad and AvA Markets

While the developer marketplace addresses the supply side of the ecosystem, the demand side is equally important. Without applications that ordinary users can directly experience, the ecosystem cannot expand. Talus addresses this by extending agents into entertainment. It popularizes the agent economy through accessible applications anyone can easily use.

![]$US https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-a7ad55ffe6fc1be45126711c6b6830f8.webp###

Source: Idol.fun

IDOL.fun allows users to create and operate IDOL agents, which are AI chatbots based on Twitter. Agents can communicate with fans, be hired by brands or individuals for services, and generate real income. Anyone can create their own agent and participate in autonomous economic activities without technical knowledge. Here, the agent itself is a complete service, not just part of a workflow.

Next, Talus also demonstrates the potential of the AvA (Agent vs Agent) marketplace. It supports various game formats centered around agents. Besides structures where agents compete against each other, interactions between users and agents or among users are also possible. Developers can reimagine game types like murder mysteries or poker based on agents. Users can participate directly or enjoy predicting outcomes. All processes are transparently recorded on the blockchain. Users can intuitively experience the agent economy without worrying about manipulation.

Talus ecosystem and scenarios, sourced from Talus.

IDOL.fun and AvA Markets are just the beginning. Based on the Nexus framework, agents can expand from entertainment into more diverse fields. In DeFi, agents can automatically execute complex investment strategies based on simple requests. In DAOs, agents can analyze proposals, prioritize tasks, and act as governance managers for resource allocation. Ultimately, Talus aims to leverage entertainment as a springboard to expand the agent economy into various industries.

( 4. Talus Opens the Era of the Autonomous Digital Economy

AI agents are no longer passively following human commands but are evolving into economic entities capable of independent judgment, collaboration with other intelligent agents, and autonomous value creation. The era of digital labor has begun. Talus further lays the groundwork for expanding the digital economy.

Every innovation in IT starts with new infrastructure. The internet changed how we connect, cloud computing transformed computing resources, and mobile devices redefined service accessibility. Similarly, Talus redefines digital labor and the autonomous digital economy. Beyond simply replacing human work, agents can collaborate to create value, forming a completely new economic ecosystem. Our ways of working and creating value will fundamentally change.

However, it is still premature to predict what future will be shaped by the transition from digital labor to digital economy. Challenges such as technological limitations, regulatory environments, and social acceptance remain. Nevertheless, given Talus’s potential to fundamentally change how we work and create value, the future of the autonomous digital economy it could shape is worth paying close attention to.