Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle and USDC stablecoin architect, is starting a new venture with Catena Labs to create the world's first 'AI-native' financial institution.
Catena aims to enable AI actors to execute financial transactions directly, with humans and businesses interacting with these agents like normal.
The company focuses on building a platform for autonomous software agents to initiate and settle transactions at machine speed.
Catena plans to provide infrastructure tools like the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK) for payments among AI agents and aims to acquire licenses for regulated stablecoin transactions.
Regulatory challenges include policy on stablecoins and identity verification for AI entities, which Catena addresses with an identity protocol.
Trust is highlighted as a key hurdle for Catena, which is working on data science techniques to establish trust among autonomous agents.
The company is focused on product development and legal compliance to establish insured accounts and cross-border remittances in the future.
Investors are optimistic about Catena's potential to revolutionize agentic finance, akin to how HTTP revolutionized the early web.
The success of Catena's vision depends on widespread acceptance and trust in autonomous agents for financial transactions.
Neville is dedicated to building confidence in the market for AI-based finance, with a long-term goal of enabling machines to play a greater role in financial interactions.
Catena's journey from stablecoins to AI banking represents a bold step towards shaping the future of financial services.