MoonPay, a global leader in cryptocurrency payments, has unveiled the Open Wallet Standard (OWS), an innovative open-source framework designed to enable AI agents to securely hold value, sign transactions, and make payments across all major blockchains without the risk of exposing private keys.
The OWS has officially launched on popular platforms such as GitHub, npm, and PyPI, with contributions from a wide array of over 15 prominent organizations, including PayPal, OKX, Ripple, and the Ethereum Foundation. This collaborative effort underscores the significance of a universal wallet standard, filling a crucial gap in the emerging agent economy.
Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and co-founder of MoonPay, explained that while the agent economy had established payment rails, it lacked a standardized wallet framework. “We built one, open-sourced it, and now the full stack exists,” he stated, highlighting the comprehensive nature of this new development.
The OWS builds on MoonPay Agents, a non-custodial software layer released in February 2026, which allows AI agents to autonomously manage funds and conduct transactions. This previous implementation provided features like x402 protocol compatibility and support for hardware signing via Ledger, marking it as a pioneering effort focused on agent functionality.
The existing AI agent frameworks faced a significant challenge: the absence of a universal wallet standard. Each framework employed its own key management systems, signing logic, and wallet formats, resulting in fragmented and often insecure wallets. In response, MoonPay generalized their agent wallet stack across various chains and platforms, releasing it under an MIT open-source license as the OWS.
The emergence of agent payments protocols, such as the x402 from Coinbase and Cloudflare, and the Machine Payments Protocol from Stripe and Tempo, has enabled machine-to-machine financial interactions. However, these protocols typically assume that the agent already possesses a functioning wallet. Without a shared standard, funds could be disorganized across multiple wallets, leaving users with difficulties managing their assets effectively.
The Open Wallet Standard addresses these challenges by offering a unified wallet interface that supports multiple blockchains, ensuring that private keys remain secure and are never exposed to the AI agent or its parent process. Key features include:
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One Encrypted Vault: A singular wallet interface for various blockchains while safeguarding private keys.
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Policy-Gated Spending: Enabling limits, allowlists, and time-bound authorizations directly enforced at the wallet level.
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Agent-Native Access: Providing SDKs for Node.js and Python, along with a command-line interface (CLI) compatible with major AI frameworks like ChatGPT.
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Local-First Security: Ensuring keys remain on-device and encrypted, only decrypting at the moment of signing and immediately wiping them thereafter.
Max Crown, CEO of the TON Foundation, emphasized the significance of a multi-chain approach, asserting that no serious agent should be confined to a single chain, and the OWS treats every network equally.
The OWS operates without exposing keys, utilizing encrypted storage and a pre-signing policy engine that enforces spending rules tailored to specific transaction needs. Its design eliminates cloud dependencies, broadcasting only signed transactions on-chain to maintain maximum security.
Notably, the Open Wallet Standard embraces an open-source ethos, allowing for modular integration with existing protocols while supporting a skills marketplace for plugins and compliance modules. The lack of gatekeeping encourages contributions from anyone interested in strengthening the ecosystem.
As MoonPay progresses in its transition towards AI-native infrastructure, the launch of the Open Wallet Standard signifies a pivotal moment, making programmable finance accessible to every agent and blockchain. This development paves the way for the future of machine-to-machine payments, streamlining financial interactions in an increasingly automated world.
Interested developers can easily access OWS by installing it via Shell script, npm, or pip, with complete documentation and specifications available on GitHub and the official site.
