How agents prove who they are and hold assets

🆕 Recent Updates (January 2026)

KYA (Know Your Agent) becomes table stakes — The shift from KYC to KYA is accelerating. a16z crypto identifies "the biggest bottleneck in the era of agentomics is no longer intelligence but identity and trust." Non-human identities now outnumber humans 80:1 to 144:1 in enterprise environments.

🆕 This Week (Jan 12-13):

• PYMNTS Analysis — "KYA will involve authentication to prove agents are legitimate by showing essentially a passport" — unique identifier confirming permissions, verified developer/user, unchanged code
• Strata Maverics Identity — New agentic identity platform launched with support for OAuth/JWT integration, edge-based delegation enforcement, MCP-compatible
• MCP-I Proposal — Model Context Protocol Identity extension emerging, combining DIDs + VCs for agent delegation with edge verification

Key Standards Updates:

• NIST SP 800-63-4 (July 2025) — Modernized digital identity guidelines with support for phishing-resistant MFA, passkeys, digital wallets, and subscriber-controlled verifiable credentials
• W3C Verifiable Credentials v2.0 (May 2025) — Enables cryptographically signed identity and mandate claims for agents across platforms
• W3C Digital Credentials API (July 2025) — First Public Working Draft enabling websites to request credentials from digital wallets
• NHIcon 2026 (Jan 27) — Major conference on non-human identity security featuring Phil Venables (former CISO Goldman/Google Cloud)

New Identity Solutions:

Key Themes for 2026

• AI agents as "first-class identities" requiring same governance as humans
• MCP access treated as core attack surface
• Least privilege enforcement for agent credentials
• Shadow agent detection + just-in-time access