MoonPay has taken a significant step in the cryptocurrency space by launching the Open Wallet Standard, a groundbreaking open-source framework aimed at standardizing how AI agents utilize crypto wallets. Released on March 23, the initiative provides a secure and universal interface for managing crypto funds across various blockchains, facilitating a uniform approach to wallet creation, key management, and transaction signing.
This standard, which has garnered support from over 15 organizations including notable names such as PayPal, Circle, OKX, and Ripple, aims to address a pressing demand in the evolving agent economy. MoonPay’s CEO, Ivan Soto-Wright, remarked on the transformative potential of this standard, emphasizing that the “agent economy has payment rails, and it did not have a wallet standard” prior to this initiative.
The Open Wallet Standard allows AI agents to manage funds and conduct transactions without the risk of directly accessing private keys. This innovation is crucial as it promotes enhanced security in transactions involving cryptocurrencies. The framework is built to support a diverse array of blockchains, including EVM-compatible networks like Ethereum, Base, Polygon, and Arbitrum, as well as Bitcoin, Solana, TON, Tron, and Sui networks. Developers are empowered to utilize and modify the code freely under the MIT license, which has been published on platforms such as GitHub, npm, and PyPI.
This announcement follows the introduction of MoonPay Agents in February 2026, a product designed to grant AI agents access to wallets via command-line interfaces. Additionally, earlier in March, MoonPay integrated Ledger hardware signing into its agent stack, further bolstering security measures.
In the first quarter of 2026, MoonPay reported that AI agents were associated with over 340,000 on-chain wallets. Historically, many agent frameworks opted for separate key management systems, often leading to insecure practices such as storing private keys in plaintext files. The Open Wallet Standard mitigates these risks by decoupling authorization from key custody, allowing agents to request payments without holding the cryptographic secrets directly, thereby reducing the chance of private key exposure.
The framework has attracted contributions from a range of industry participants, including the Ethereum Foundation, the Solana Foundation, and the TON Foundation, among others. Market forecasts indicate significant growth for the AI-crypto sector, projected to increase from $5.1 billion in 2025 to an astounding $55.2 billion by 2035. It is estimated that AI agents could handle around 30% of all crypto transactions by that time. This surge in AI applications in the crypto space is underscored by other recent initiatives, such as the launch of an AI-focused micropayment platform by Stripe and Tempo shortly before MoonPay’s announcement.
As the intersection of AI and cryptocurrency continues to evolve, the Open Wallet Standard marks a noteworthy advancement in enhancing the efficiency and security of transactions involving AI agents, setting a new industry precedent in cryptocurrency wallet management.
