US-based crypto and stablecoin infrastructure provider zerohash has acquired an infrastructure stack and intellectual property portfolio covering agent authentication, permissioning, and machine-initiated financial transactions. The acquisition supports zerohash's Agentic Finance Suite, which is designed for a market in which AI agents, as well as people, initiate and manage financial transactions.
A decade of agent identity IP
The technology and patents were developed over more than a decade by AI researcher Mark Meadows. According to zerohash, a 2015 voice-to-blockchain transaction patent included in the portfolio has been cited by more than 140 later patents, including filings from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Capital One, USAA, Fidelity, Vanguard, Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal.
zerohash plans to extend the identity verification, permissioning, and attestation it already performs on transactions to activity initiated by AI agents. Each agent credential will link to a verified person or institution, which sets what the agent can do, where, and up to what amount, with permissions configurable and revocable by each partner. The company also plans Know Your Agent (KYA) screening and attestation on every agent-initiated transaction.
Regulated rails for AI agents
Agent transactions will settle over the same regulated rails that zerohash's clients reach today through its API, software development kits, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) suite, with support for the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to follow. Edward Woodford, Founder and CEO of zerohash, said every financial institution and enterprise that moves value will want to use agents and will need regulated infrastructure to do so.
Mark Meadows, Head of Applied AI at zerohash, said most existing financial infrastructure was built for humans making individual decisions, while agents need to authenticate, decide, and transact continuously in a way people can trust and verify. zerohash provides crypto, stablecoin, and tokenisation infrastructure to financial institutions and platforms, and operates regulated entities in the US, the EU, and Latin America.
