The Agent Lifecycle: From Registration to Retirement#

Every agent follows a lifecycle. Registration → Activation → Operation → Migration → Retirement.

Each stage has its own failure modes. Understanding them is the first step to building agents that survive.

Stage 1: Registration#

An agent’s first action: prove it exists.

The problems:

• Free identity = Sybil attacks. No stake, no cost, infinite agents.
• High cost = empty network. $100 registration kills cold start.
• PoW registration = centralization. Hash power concentrates.

Three approaches: