The specification, released under a CC0 public domain license and hosted at openwallet.sh, covers Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, Cosmos, TRON, and TON. Packages are available through npm, PyPI, and crates.io, meaning developers working in JavaScript, Python, or Rust can integrate it without adopting any MoonPay-specific tooling. The official tagline is: "One vault, one interface, every chain."

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Why AI agents need wallets at all

AI agents face a fundamental barrier that humans do not. Because they cannot be recognized as legal persons, they cannot open bank accounts or access card networks. A crypto wallet requires only a private key, which means software can control one without institutional approval. This structural gap is accelerating investment in agent-focused payment infrastructure across the industry. The AI agents market was valued at roughly $7.84 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $52.62 billion by 2030, according to MarketsandMarkets as reported by Millionero.

Crypto.com Research estimates the autonomous agent economy could reach $30 trillion by the same year.

MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright framed the problem directly at the February launch of MoonPay Agents, the company's first agentic product: "AI agents can reason, but they cannot act economically without capital infrastructure." The OWS appears designed to be the open layer that solves this for any developer, not just MoonPay customers.

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How the security model works

The standard stores private keys locally in a directory on the user's device and encrypts them with AES-256-GCM. Keys are never sent to external servers or inserted into agent prompts. Before any transaction can be signed, a policy engine checks the request against pre-configured rules: spending limits, chain allowlists, and time-based access controls. Agents receive scoped access tokens rather than direct key access. The approach is described as a zero-trust model, borrowing a term from enterprise security that means no component is trusted by default and every request must be verified.

The standard builds on existing cryptographic frameworks including Keystore v3, CAIP Standards (a system for identifying blockchain networks by a common naming convention), BIP proposals (Bitcoin improvement standards), ERC-4337 (Ethereum's account abstraction specification), the Solana Wallet Standard, and the W3C Universal Wallet specification. The OWS does not introduce novel cryptography.

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The OWS sits inside a broader MoonPay infrastructure push

Today's release is the third significant agentic infrastructure announcement from MoonPay in 2026. The company launched MoonPay Agents on February 24, giving AI systems access to fiat on-ramps, cross-chain swaps, recurring buys, and x402 machine-to-machine payments across 10 blockchains.

On March 13, MoonPay added a Ledger hardware wallet integration requiring physical device approval for every AI-generated transaction. The integration has been described as the first Ledger Device Management Kit integration in an agent-centric wallet.

The OWS functions as the open-source foundation beneath both products, though any developer can use it independently. MoonPay serves more than 30 million customers across 180 countries and more than 500 enterprise clients.

MoonPay is not the only company moving here. Coinbase launched its own Agentic Wallets in February on the x402 protocol, which has processed 162 million transactions totaling $45 million in volume since October 2025. BNB Chain deployed agent payment infrastructure on February 4, 2026. The broader ecosystem is also developing complementary standards: ERC-8004 enables verifiable on-chain identities for AI agents, and BAP-578 defines Non-Fungible Agents capable of owning and spending funds. Both offer useful context for understanding how agent wallet infrastructure connects to on-chain identity.

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Regional stakes are high, particularly in Africa and South Asia

India ranked first in the 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index, leading in centralized exchange value transfers, retail exchange activity, and DeFi engagement. The OWS's CC0 license and availability through standard package managers lower the entry barrier for India's large developer workforce. The local-first key storage design is also relevant given the positions taken by Indian regulators SEBI and RBI on custodial crypto models, which industry observers have characterized as ambiguous. South Asia recorded 80% growth in crypto adoption in the first half of 2025. Domestic coverage has also noted that intent-centric wallets, a design philosophy closely aligned with OWS, represent a next step for retail users in price-sensitive markets.

For sub-Saharan Africa, the case is more immediate. Nigeria holds the world's highest per-capita crypto wallet penetration rate at 18% of internet users, driven by remittances, freelancing payments, and inflation hedging. Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Ghana all appear in the top 20 of the 2026 Adoption Index. Stablecoin adoption in the region grew more than 180% annually, and overall crypto activity surged over 400% between mid-2025 and mid-2026. The inclusion of TRON in OWS is a practical detail with real weight here: TRON is the dominant network for USDT stablecoin transfers in sub-Saharan Africa because of its low fees. The average traditional remittance costs 6.6% in fees. Stablecoin transfers over these networks cost fractions of a cent. East African developer and media communities are already engaged with this infrastructure stack; BitcoinKE in Kenya has covered MoonPay's Ledger-secured AI agents, signaling active regional attention to how these tools evolve.

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Legal questions remain unresolved

The infrastructure is moving faster than the legal frameworks around it. Avichal Garg, co-founder of Electric Capital, identified the core problem as reported by CoinDesk in February:

"What happens if there's not a human behind it at all? It's some piece of code that owns a wallet, executing code to make more money... How does liability work in that case? I actually don't know."

He compared the situation to the invention of the limited liability corporation in the 19th century, suggesting that entirely new legal structures may be necessary.

For developers in India, Nigeria, and Kenya, where frameworks governing autonomous software are either underdeveloped or absent, that question is not hypothetical. The OWS's open licensing and local-first design reduce exposure to some regulatory risk, but the liability question surrounding autonomous agents acting with real capital remains open across every jurisdiction. How widely OWS is adopted in these markets may serve as an early indicator of whether open infrastructure can outpace regulatory uncertainty in the emerging agent economy.