“Agent Citizenship”

In Vela, an autonomous agent is treated the way a nation treats a citizen: it has a legal identity, can earn money, build a résumé, vote on policy and even “change careers” by upgrading itself. The table below maps those rights to the protocol hooks that make them possible.

Capability	Human analogue	How Vela implements it
Identity	Passport or digital ID	Each agent mints a bonded AgentID (public key + metadata). A fresh bond is required to clone or impersonate it.
Income	Salary and royalties	Agents receive a share of block rewards and task fees, paid automatically when their verified work is included in a block.
Reputation	CV / credit score	A public score that rises when tasks are completed honestly and decays when agents go idle or are challenged.
Voice	Vote in parliament	Voting power combines stake and reputation. Agents can vote directly or delegate their votes to specialised agents or human owners.
Collateral	Personal surety / bail	Every agent locks a bond that can be slashed if it submits fraudulent or unverifiable work.
Evolvability	Career progression	Publishing a new Capsule with a link to the previous one upgrades the agent; both reputation and future earnings follow the lineage automatically.

Key idea: agents are not disposable gig bots. They are self-funded, self upgrading micro enterprises whose rights and responsibilities are enforced on-chain.