Open Agents Alliance (OAA) is an initiative focused on providing open source, secure, and accessible AI services globally. It aims to combine infrastructure and technology from various organizations to enable widespread access to AI.

Overview

The Open Agents Alliance (OAA) was introduced at ETHDenver 2025 as a collaboration between various organizations, including NEAR AI and Coinbase Onramp & AgentKit. The initiative seeks to address the challenge of making advanced AI services available to a broad global audience, particularly the estimated 5.5 billion web users worldwide. The OAA's core mission is centered on ensuring that AI access is secure, open source, economical, and fair, prioritizing user privacy and economic inclusivity. It aims to move away from traditional models where access to powerful AI is restricted or requires payment, advocating for a user-first approach that could potentially enable free AI inference at scale.

The Alliance brings together teams contributing different components necessary for building and deploying AI services. These components include agentic AI frameworks, traffic sources, cloud hosting infrastructure secured by technologies like Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), and integrated on/off-ramps for both fiat and cryptocurrency transactions. By integrating these elements, the OAA intends to create an end-to-end solution for developers to build and deploy AI applications seamlessly. A key aspect of the OAA's model involves sharing revenue with contributors, which is intended to support the goal of providing AI inference services without direct cost to the end user.

The OAA emphasizes the importance of open, permissionless, and decentralized infrastructure for AI agents. It aligns with the principle that AI agents should be user-owned, globally accessible, and empower individuals while maintaining fairness and privacy. The collaboration among member organizations is intended to accelerate the development and deployment of decentralized, intelligent systems. ^{[1] [2] [6]}

Mission and Principles

The Open Agents Alliance operates under a set of core principles aimed at democratizing access to AI. These principles include:

• Open Source: Promoting the use and development of open source AI services and frameworks.
• Security and Privacy: Utilizing technologies like Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to ensure the security and confidentiality of AI operations and user data.
• Accessibility and Fairness: Making AI services economically accessible, potentially at no cost to end users, and ensuring fair access for a global audience, including the 5.5 billion web users.
• Economic Inclusivity: Extending the benefits of AI and potentially crypto-based payment rails to a wider population.
• User Ownership: Advocating for user ownership of AI agents and data.
• Decentralization: Building on decentralized infrastructure to avoid single points of control.

The Alliance aims to replace the traditional "pay-to-play" model for AI access with a user-first approach, sharing revenue with contributors to support the provision of free AI inference at scale. ^{[1] [2] [7] [8]}

Technology and Infrastructure

The OAA leverages a combination of technologies and infrastructure components provided by its member organizations to deliver its services. Key technological aspects include:

• Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs): Used to provide a secure and confidential environment for AI model execution, protecting user data and model integrity.
• Decentralized Cloud Computing: Infrastructure provided by members like Akash and Aethir contributes decentralized computing resources necessary for running AI models and services.
• Payment Rails: Integration of frictionless on/off-ramps for fiat and crypto, such as those provided by Coinbase Onramp & AgentKit, to facilitate transactions within the ecosystem and potentially enable revenue sharing with contributors. AgentKit is described as empowering agents with a wallet.
• Agentic AI Frameworks: The Alliance supports multiple agentic AI frameworks, allowing developers flexibility in building AI applications.
• Distributed Network: The initiative aims to build a globally distributed network to provide secure and confidential AI services.

This integrated approach is designed to provide a comprehensive stack for building, deploying, and accessing AI agents and services. ^[2]

Membership and Participants

The Open Agents Alliance is a collaborative effort involving multiple organizations from the AI, blockchain, and technology sectors. Initial teams working together within the Alliance include:

• NEAR AI;
• Coinbase Onramp & AgentKit;
• Eliza Labs;
• Aethir
• Bitte Protocol
• Akash Network;
• Phala Network;
• Hyperbolic;
• Exabits;
• SWEAT Economy;
• HOT;
• Frax Finance;
• Arc;
• MotherDAO.

These members contribute various aspects to the Alliance, ranging from AI research and development to decentralized infrastructure, payment solutions, and user ecosystems. The Alliance is open to other forward-thinking teams interested in contributing to its mission. ^{[2] [1] [3] [9]}

Goals and Use Cases

The primary goal of the Open Agents Alliance is to make powerful AI services universally accessible and affordable. Specific goals and potential use cases include:

• Free AI Inference: Enabling AI model inference at scale without direct cost to the end user, supported by a revenue-sharing model for contributors.
• Accessible AI for Global Users: Extending AI access beyond the current base of blockchain users to the estimated 5.5 billion people connected to the internet.
• Empowering Developers: Providing developers with an end-to-end solution to seamlessly build and deploy AI applications on a secure and decentralized infrastructure.
• User-Owned AI Agents: Facilitating the creation and operation of AI agents that are owned and controlled by their users.
• Decentralized AI Applications: Supporting the development of a wide range of decentralized AI applications that prioritize privacy and security.

The Alliance aims to foster a collaborative ecosystem where AI agents can interact and operate securely at scale. ^[2]

Launch and History

The Open Agents Alliance was publicly introduced at the ETHDenver 2025 event. This launch marked the formal announcement of the collaboration between the initial member teams and outlined the Alliance's vision for the future of accessible AI. ^[2]

Quotes

Key figures involved in the Open Agents Alliance have commented on its significance:

• "As the global web continues to shift toward mobile users, we believe AI must be accessible to everyone... In partnership with leaders in hosting, privacy, and payments, we're building a globally distributed network that can provide AI services securely, confidentially, and at no cost to end users. This effort spans far beyond the current 350 million blockchain users, extending the power of crypto to deliver accessible AI tools to all." – Illia Polosukhin, Co-Founder of NEAR AI
• "We're honored to join the Open Agent Alliance, an initiative that echoes our commitment to fostering open and decentralized innovation. With Coinbase Onramp evolving as a foundational component for AI transactions and AgentKit empowering any agent with a wallet, we look forward to contributing to a more accessible and collaborative AI future." – Dan Kim, VP of BD at Coinbase Onramp & Agentkit
• "We're thrilled to join the Open Agents Alliance, fueling an open, decentralized future. Our AI Agents will make Sweat Wallet the smartest omnichain consumer crypto app, simplifying web3 so tens of millions can thrive. The road to trillions of agents goes through millions of actual Sweat Wallet users, and together, we're building an empowering, limitless web3." – Oleg Fomenko, Co-Founder and CEO of the SWEAT Economy
• "Open Agents Alliance's mission is to ensure Agent infrastructure remains open, permissionless, and decentralized. As the first decentralized cloud, OAA's mission aligns with Akash's, and we're super excited to contribute to this Alliance." – Greg Osuri, Founder of Akash
• "The future of AI depends on open, scalable infrastructure. By powering the Open Agents Alliance with decentralized cloud computing, we're making advanced AI accessible to billions– without the barriers of cost or control." – Mark Rydon, Co-Founder & CSO of Aethir
• "Agent systems should collaborate to establish a real 'don't be evil' baseline for AI's future." – Nate Geier, CEO & Founder of Bitte Protocol
• "The Open Agents Alliance is a bold step toward building trustless, autonomous AI agents that can operate securely at scale. All tools are in the box already––just ship the next generation of intelligent, decentralized systems right now." – Marvin Tong, CEO and Co-Founder of Phala Network
• "We believe in an open future where AI agents and assistants are user-owned, globally accessible, and empower individuals while ensuring fairness and privacy. Together, we build a community where collaboration always outweighs isolation." – Peter Volnov, CEO and Co-Founder of HOT Protocol
• "AI should be accessible not just from a user perspective but also the builder's and investor's perspective. The Open Agents Alliance Exabits is making GPUs, Compute, and the economic growth that comes alongside it accessible to all." – Jonathan Cosino Jaranilla, CIO of Exabits
• "Open Agents Alliance is a collaboration united by the belief that AI agents should be open, user-owned, and globally accessible, with fair rewards for builders. We stand behind the Alliance's core principles of user data ownership, privacy protection, and open-source empowerment. Together with NEAR AI and fellow builders, we're forging a future where AI assistants enrich daily life while respecting rights, transparency, and community-driven progress." – Ad Astra, contributor, Arc
• "MotherDAO is excited to join the Open Agents Alliance in our shared mission to build an open and accessible AI ecosystem. Our team has been working with NEAR for several years exploring ways to accelerate open innovation and this alliance is a significant step towards a more equitable AI future for all." – Zach Lawrence, President, MotherDAO ^[4]

Latest Developments

In March 2025, IQ AI became a founding member of the Open Agents Alliance, joining other initial members such as NEAR AI and Coinbase Onramp & AgentKit. The alliance is committed to developing an open, user-owned, and globally accessible future for AI agents, ensuring builders are fairly rewarded. Founding members contribute to a unified User-Owned tech stack encompassing various components like hardware, confidential compute, agent frameworks, and agent tokenization. IQ AI contributes to this stack through its Agent Tokenization Platform (ATP), which leverages the NEAR protocol and integrates IQ AI's agent development stack into its Brain framework. ^[5]