Masumi Network merges AI and blockchain to secure the agent economy

By 2026, forward-thinking organizations will be deploying teams of AI agents across various roles and functions. Yet amid this rapid adoption, another critical factor demands attention.

One of IDC’s enterprise technology predictions, released in October, offered a compelling insight: "By 2030, up to 20% of Global 1000 companies could face lawsuits, major fines, and CIO terminations due to high-profile disruptions caused by insufficient AI agent controls and governance," the analyst firm stated.

So how can organizations implement effective guardrails—and ensure these agents collaborate smoothly and conduct transactions securely? Patrick Tobler, founder and CEO of blockchain infrastructure provider NMKR, is tackling this challenge by merging agentic AI with decentralized systems.

The Masumi Network, a joint initiative by NMKR and Serviceplan Group, launched in late 2024 as a framework-agnostic infrastructure that enables developers to build autonomous agents capable of collaboration, service monetization, and verifiable trust.

“The core idea behind Masumi is that billions of AI agents from different companies will eventually need to interact,” Tobler explains. “The real challenge lies in enabling agents from various organizations to communicate and transact with each other securely.”

Consider travel planning as an example. Your hotel booking agent could purchase a flight ticket from your airline agent, creating a seamless experience—all while relying on built-in trust.

“Masumi operates as a decentralized agent network, independent of centralized payment systems,” says Tobler. “Agents come equipped with wallets and can transfer stablecoins between one another, allowing safe, trustless interactions.”

Having spent what he describes as “considerable time” in the crypto space, Tobler realized its core benefits were being misapplied.

“Many challenges we solved in crypto were designed for humans, but I began to think we might have been targeting the wrong audience,” he notes. “For people, using crypto, wallets, and blockchains remains complex—the user experience isn’t intuitive. But for AI agents, complexity isn’t a barrier. They operate natively within these systems.

“So the emerging issues of agents interacting at scale—potentially millions or billions of them—are problems crypto has already addressed.”

Tobler will be attending the AI & Big Data Expo Global as part of Discover Cardano. NMKR originated on the Cardano blockchain, and Masumi is fully built on it. He looks forward to connecting with businesses that are “hearing a lot about AI but not yet implementing it beyond tools like ChatGPT.”

“I want to learn about their current efforts and explore how we can assist,” he says. “That’s something often missing in traditional tech startups. We tend to build within our own bubble instead of engaging with the people who will use these solutions daily.”

Discover Cardano will be exhibiting at the AI & Big Data Expo Global in London on February 4–5. Watch the full video interview with NMKR’s Patrick Tobler below:

Photo by Google DeepMind