The Protocol: Ethereum community debates foundation’s new mandate document
Also: World’s AgentKit, Visa and Coinbase on AI agents, and prediction markets + AI.
By Margaux Nijkerk|Edited by Stephen Alpher Mar 18, 2026, 3:52 p.m.
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What to know:
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, a reporter at CoinDesk.
In this issue:
- Ethereum Foundation’s new mandate sparks debate about its role, priorities
- Sam Altman's World teams up with Coinbase to prove there is a real person behind every AI transaction
- Visa is ready for AI agents. So is Coinbase. They're building very different internets
- AI agents are quietly rewriting prediction market trading
Network News
ETHEREUM COMMUNITY DEBATES FOUNDATIONS NEW MANDATE DOCUMENT: The Ethereum Foundation’s new mandate — a sweeping document released to clarify the organization’s role and principles — sparked a torrent of reactions, with supporters praising it as a long-overdue articulation of the blockchain's ethos and critics saying it reinforces the foundation’s hands-off approach at a time when Ethereum needs stronger leadership to meet the growing needs of institutions. The 38-page document lays out what the foundation described as a constitutional guide to its mission, emphasizing its role as a neutral steward rather than a centralized authority. The mandate frames the foundation’s job as maintaining Ethereum as a decentralized and resilient infrastructure while supporting the protocol layer and public goods across the ecosystem. The document arrived at a pivotal moment for Ethereum. The network has matured into one of the world’s largest crypto ecosystems, and the foundation itself has gone through leadership changes and debates over how actively it should steer development. Reactions on X quickly divided into two camps. Critics were quick to argue the mandate was overly philosophical and failed to address Ethereum’s need to compete for real-world adoption — particularly as institutional interest in blockchain grows. Dankrad Feist, a former Ethereum Foundation researcher and key contributor to Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, said the document does little to address practical business development concerns about how the ecosystem serves real users. Others suggested the mandate risks reinforcing a status quo in which the foundation holds significant soft influence without clearly defined responsibilities. Supporters in the community welcomed the mandate as a reaffirmation of the network’s foundational principles. Chris Perkins, president and managing partner at crypto investment firm CoinFund, said the document helps clarify the foundation’s purpose as a nonprofit steward of the ecosystem. Infrastructure firms in the Ethereum ecosystem also voiced support for the mandate. Nethermind, a company that develops one of blockchain's core client software implementations, said the document reflects many of the properties institutional buyers already look for when evaluating blockchain infrastructure. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
WORLD LAUNCHES AGENTKIT: As AI agents increasingly transact, shop, and act autonomously online — a market that can reach $3 trillion to $5 trillion by 2030 — a key issue comes into focus: how to verify that a real person is behind the activity. Sam Altman–backed identity project World (formerly WorldCoin) says it has the solution. On Tuesday, the company rolled out AgentKit, a developer toolkit that allows AI agents to carry cryptographic proof that they are backed by a unique human, using its World ID system. The product works with x402, a protocol developed by Coinbase and Cloudflare that enables “agentic payments” by embedding stablecoin micropayments into the internet’s communication layer so AI Agents and software can pay each other without human intervention. “Payments are the ‘how’ of agentic commerce, but identity is the ‘who,’” said Erik Reppel, head of engineering at Coinbase Developer Platform and founder of x402. “This is a massive step toward a web where agents aren’t just seen as automated traffic, but as legitimate economic participants.” The move comes as AI agents are rapidly evolving, handling time-consuming and often frustrating tasks from booking reservations to surfing e-commerce marketplaces for the best deals. — Olivier Acuna Read more.
VISA VS. COINBASE ON AI AGENTS: Your AI just made several payments while you read that headline. You approved none of them. Visa processed none of them. And if the crypto industry's biggest bulls are right, that's not a bug — it's the entire future of the internet economy. Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong thinks there will soon be more AI agents than humans making transactions on the internet. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao went further, predicting agents will make one million times more payments than people, all in crypto. The posts landed on the same day last week and lit up crypto X.The core argument is structural. AI agents can't open bank accounts because banks require identity verification that software cannot provide, whereas a crypto wallet only needs a private key. No KYC, no compliance review, no waiting — and that asymmetry is what Armstrong was pointing at. But the wallet problem is only half the picture. The other half is economics. Agents don't shop the way humans do. When an AI agent is executing a task — such as researching a topic, coordinating a supply chain, building a report — it might call dozens of specialized APIs in a single session. Each call might be worth fractions of a cent, covering GPU compute time, real-time data feeds, web scraping services, or hiring a sub-agent to handle translation. None of these transactions resembles anything Visa or Mastercard was designed to process. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.
PREDICTION MARKETS AND AI AGENTS: Prediction markets have long promised to aggregate insights about future events. Increasingly, those signals are coming not just from people, but from machines. According to David Minarsch, CEO and co-founder of Valory AG, the team behind the crypto-AI protocol Olas, autonomous AI agents are emerging as powerful tools for trading prediction markets, particularly for retail users trying to compete in an increasingly automated environment. Valory builds products at the intersection of blockchain and multi-agent systems (MAS), and its current focus is Olas, formerly known as Autonolas. The protocol is designed as an infrastructure for autonomous software agents that can run services on blockchains, interact with smart contracts, and cooperate with one another while earning crypto rewards. The broader vision is what Minarsch calls an “agent economy”. A decentralized ecosystem where autonomous AI agents perform useful tasks and generate value for their users. One of the most visible experiments in that vision is Polystrat, an AI agent launched on the prediction-market platform Polymarket in February 2026. The agent trades on behalf of users who self-custody and own it, executing strategies continuously around the clock. “In a nutshell, Polystrat is an autonomous AI agent that trades on Polymarket 24/7 on behalf of its human user,” Minarsch said. The idea is simple: while humans sleep, work or lose focus, the agent keeps trading. — Will Canny Read more.
In Other News
- Mastercard agreed to buy BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure company, for as much as $1.8 billion as it looks to bolster its use of the digital assets for international payments. By integrating BVNK’s technology, Mastercard aims to connect onchain payments to its global network, enabling use cases such as cross-border transfers, remittances and business-to-business payments, the company said. BVNK provides the technology to bridge traditional fiat systems with blockchain-based transactions, allowing businesses to move money in seconds across more than 130 countries. Its infrastructure, used by firms including Worldpay, Deel and Flywire, processes $30 billion a year, the U.K.-based company said in a blog post. BVNK's capabilities complement Mastercard’s existing card network, expanding options for moving money across both traditional fiat systems and blockchain-based rails, investment bank William Blair said in a note. — Helene Braun Read more.
- Crypto trading firm GSR said it is acquiring Autonomous and Architech for $57 million, expanding into token advisory and capital markets services. Autonomous will keep its brand and focus on token launch operations, while Architech will anchor a new unit, GSR Digital Asset Advisory. The group will work alongside GSR’s trading, liquidity and asset management businesses. Token launches today often rely on separate firms for structuring, token economics and market making, which can lead to misaligned incentives. The firm said GSR’s model combines those services into one platform, covering governance design, exchange strategy and capital planning. At the same time, many token foundations manage large treasuries without formal financial tools. GSR is expanding into treasury operations, offering support in liquidity planning, risk management and diversification as projects look to move beyond holding their own tokens. — Kristzian Sandor Read more.
Regulatory and Policy
- For the first time, the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission has sought to clearly define different types of crypto assets and how the regulator will approach them, issuing those new standards alongside its sister agency that's responsible for commodities. The SEC's interpretive guidance, which doesn't yet carry the weight of a formal new rule, has been promised by its leader, Chairman Paul Atkins, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to advance a pro-crypto agenda. And it was issued in partnership with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, just days after the two agencies agreed on a formal relationship in which they plan to regulate crypto and other industries as close partners. “After more than a decade of uncertainty, this interpretation will provide market participants with a clear understanding of how the Commission treats crypto assets under federal securities laws," Atkins said in a statement. — Jesse Hamilton Read more.
- Phantom, a developer of self-custodial crypto wallets particularly popular in the Solana ecosystem, secured a no-action letter from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), allowing it to offer users access to certain regulated derivatives markets without registering as a broker. In a statement, the CFTC’s Market Participants Division said it would not recommend enforcement action against Phantom for failing to register as an introducing broker, provided the firm meets a set of conditions. The relief applies to Phantom’s software, acting as a non-custodial interface that connects users directly with CFTC-registered entities, such as futures commission merchants and designated contract markets. Phantom said in a blog post that the letter enables it to integrate access to regulated derivatives and event contracts directly in its app through registered partners, while ensuring users submit orders straight to exchanges. The company emphasized it does not custody customer funds or intermediate trades.— Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
Calendar
- Mar. 24-26, 2026: Digital Asset Summit, New York City
- Mar. 30-Apr. 2, 2026: EthCC, Cannes
- Apr.15-16, 2026: Paris Blockchain Week, Paris
- May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami
- Sept. 29-Oct.1, 2026: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul
- Oct. 7-8, 2026: Token2049, Singapore
- Nov. 3-6, 2026: Devcon, Mumbai
- Nov. 15-17, 2026: Solana Breakpoint, London
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Stripe-led payments blockchain Tempo goes live with protocol for AI agents
By Krisztian Sandor|Edited by Aoyon Ashraf1 hour ago
The Stripe-led blockchain targets fast, low-cost digital payments and a new Machine Payments Protocol that allows AI agents pay autonomously.
What to know:
- Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain backed by Stripe and Paradigm, has launched its mainnet, bringing its stablecoin payment system out of testing and into live use.
- The network is designed to handle high volumes of low-cost stablecoin transactions and now includes a Machine Payments Protocol that lets software and AI agents pay for services autonomously.
- The debut comes amid a broader push by payments giants like Mastercard and Stripe to integrate stablecoins and blockchain rails into cross-border and everyday financial infrastructure.
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