Announcing Agnax!

For the last decade I’ve lived at the intersection of software and money—helping build open-banking rails in MENA, shipping fintech products, and sitting with founders and regulators to make new things safe enough to use. That journey led me to a simple, stubborn truth:

AI agents can already analyse, plan, and act—but they still stop at checkout.

We’re entering an era of augmentation—where people and businesses lean on AI agents to enhance their work, decisions, and daily flows. These agents won’t replace us; they’ll extend us. And like every capable colleague, they’ll need autonomy to do the job. The most critical autonomy of all is the ability to control and manage payments.

Today, that capability doesn’t exist in a way that’s native to agents. The world has human-first payment systems, not agent-first ones. That gap is why I’m starting Agnax.

The Agent Economy Is Coming—And It Changes Everything

The agent economy is the set of social and market shifts that happen once AI agents become routine counterparts in workflows:

• Work is augmented, not replaced. Agents take on structured, high-tempo tasks so humans can focus on judgment, relationships, and creativity.
• New roles emerge. People will manage, oversee, and develop agents; design guardrails; and maintain the infrastructure this economy needs.
• Go-to-market evolves. Agents will evaluate vendors, compare prices, and trigger purchases—reshaping traditional marketing and sales.
• Access widens. With agents as force multipliers, individuals and small teams gain reach once reserved for large companies—pushing the economy toward more decentralised, distributed participation.

For any of this to work at scale, agents need a safe, programmable way to identify counterparties, negotiate terms, and pay or get paid autonomously. That layer doesn’t exist yet. Agnax exists to build it.

What Agnax Is (and Why It’s Needed)

Agnax is the missing economic layer for AI agents—a platform that gives agents a verified identity, programmable wallets, and access to multiple payment rails so they can transact on our behalf, within the boundaries we set.

We’re building it around five pillars:

1) Trust

Agents must know who they’re dealing with. Agnax operates a Trust Centre where agents can verify counterparties and fetch signed attestations. This shared trust fabric reduces fraud and gives both sides a common source of truth before money moves.

2) Identity

Transactions require accountability. We tie Human or Business KYC to one or more Agent identities (KYA: Know-Your-Agent) so each agent is individually identifiable. Owners set policies per agent—budgets, whitelists, time windows—so autonomy never equals an open checkbook.

3) Autonomy

Agents need room to act, and owners need confidence they won’t exceed their brief. Our programmable wallets enforce spend scopes and limits, approvals, and context-aware rules (“only pay vendors X/Y, ≤ $Z/day, during 9–6”). Agents make payment decisions inside those boundaries.

4) Access & Flexibility

No single rail fits every job. Through Agnax, agents can choose the best available rail for a given transaction—bank transfers, card networks, or crypto—optimising for speed, cost, or counterparty preference. Using A2A (agent-to-agent) protocols, agents can negotiate price and payment mode directly and then settle via assigned secure wallets.

5) Integrations & Tooling

Developers shouldn’t rebuild plumbing. We’re assembling a centralised MCP gateway for financial integrations and a single SDK so any agent can access payment infrastructure and a growing universe of MCP servers and tools—without bespoke integrations every time.

Design Principles We Won’t Compromise On

• Safety by default. Identity and trust are not afterthoughts; they’re first-class features.
• Autonomy with guardrails. Clear, programmable boundaries respect the human or business in the loop.
• Interoperability. We meet counterparties where they are—bank rails, cards, and crypto—so value can flow.
• Auditability. Every decision and transaction is explainable and traceable.
• Developer-first. Simple APIs, great docs, and primitives you can compose into your own workflows.

Why Start Now

Agent frameworks are maturing, businesses are trialing autonomous workflows, and programmable money is no longer exotic. Yet payments remain the blocker. This is the right moment to build a trustworthy, agent-native economic layer—before brittle workarounds become bad habits.

What We’re Building First

• Verified Agent Identity (KYA) tied to human/business KYC
• Programmable wallets with scopes, limits, approvals, policies
• Universal payment access across bank, card, and crypto rails
• Trust Centre for counterparty verification and reputation signals
• A2A negotiation so agents can agree price and payment mode before settling
• SDK + Payment MCP gateway to make integrations one-and-done for developers

This is the minimum to unlock safe, useful transactions between agents—and the foundation to expand from.

The World I Want to See

A startup in Nairobi hires two people and ten agents, sells globally from day one, and gets paid in minutes. A finance team in Dubai lets a compliance agent pre-approve routine vendor payments while a procurement agent negotiates better terms. A solo creator in Bangalore runs a network of agents that buy compute, subscribe to APIs, and collect revenue—autonomously, safely, and transparently.

That future is more open, more distributed, and more fair—if we build the rails right.

A Personal Note

Starting Agnax is the most important next chapter of my career. I’ve seen the power of good infrastructure: when you make it simple and safe for builders to connect to money, entire ecosystems appear. I’m bringing that same operator’s obsession—depth on compliance, respect for regulators, pragmatism for developers—to the agent era.

Our tagline says it best: Build. Transact. Earn. Autonomously.
If this resonates—whether you’re a developer, founder, enterprise, or policymaker—I’d love to hear from you.

— Ashu Gupta
Founder, Agnax (https://agnax.net)
Dubai • 15 August 2025