Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle and current CEO of Catena Labs, has launched a bold new venture aimed at building a financial system built specifically for the age of artificial intelligence.
Catena Labs, the company behind the initiative, announced on May 20 that it had raised $18 million in a seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto division. The goal? Create a fully regulated financial institution where AI agents operate alongside humans in a system optimized for both speed and trust.
Neville believes the current financial architecture is ill-equipped for a future where AI will drive the majority of economic activity. Traditional rails, he says, are too rigid, costly, and slow to accommodate AI-powered agents conducting real-time transactions across global markets.
To address this, Catena Labs is building a system where AI can act as financial participants using “AI-native” money like stablecoins—specifically highlighting USDC for its low-cost, instant transaction capabilities.
The firm also released its first major open-source tool, the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK), a framework designed to verify agent identity and support secure transactions between humans and AI.
The project is rooted in a future where digital agents don’t just assist humans—they execute commerce on their behalf, powered by money that moves at machine speed.
Global fintech firm FIS (NYSE: FIS) has entered into a new strategic partnership with a subsidiary of Circle Internet Group, Inc. (NYSE: CRCL) to bring USDC payment capabilities to U.S. financial institutions.
PayPal has launched a new service, Pay with Crypto, aimed at reducing the high costs and complexity of cross-border payments for merchants.
Goldman Sachs and BNY are set to unveil a groundbreaking blockchain initiative that will allow institutional investors to purchase tokenized shares of money market funds, according to CNBC.
Polymarket, the fast-growing crypto prediction market, is exploring the launch of its own stablecoin to capitalize on the yield generated from reserves backing USDC deposits.