Pharos Network Lets AI Agents Hold Assets and Pay Their Own Gas

Financial Layer 1 blockchain Pharos Network has unveiled a major Agent Native upgrade designed to make AI agents more capable participants in blockchain-based financial activity.

In a press release shared with Cryptowisser, the team said the upgrade was announced during a keynote at Korea Blockchain Week. The initiative combines protocol-level infrastructure with new AI-powered experiences aimed at users and developers.

The rollout begins with upgrades to the Pharos Testnet and is expected to continue throughout the fourth quarter of 2026. Key components include Sponsored Transactions, the Pharos Port Agent Widget, the new Pharos AI portal, and a collaboration between Pharos and AnvitaMate.

The longer-term goal is more ambitious: transform Pharos into what the project describes as an "Agent-Native Chain" capable of supporting AI agents as independent economic actors.

Pharos Targets AI Agents as Onchain Economic Participants

AI agents have advanced rapidly over the past two years, evolving from experimental technology into tools capable of completing increasingly complex tasks.

However, Pharos argues that much of this development has occurred offchain.

Moving autonomous agents into blockchain environments presents additional challenges, including access to reusable skills, reliable payment mechanisms, and infrastructure that enables agents to collaborate with one another.

Pharos' Agent Native strategy attempts to address those limitations by treating an AI agent as more than an interface that responds to prompts.

Instead, the network envisions agents capable of holding assets, accessing blockchain tools, coordinating with other agents, and paying for actions they perform.

This model could potentially allow AI agents to participate directly in decentralized financial activity rather than simply helping humans navigate blockchain applications.

The Agent Native initiative is being integrated with Pharos' broader RealFi strategy, which focuses on bringing real-world assets and financial activity onto blockchain infrastructure.

Under this model, RealFi provides the financial assets and economic activity, while Agent Native creates another interface through which users and developers can access and interact with them.

Pharos has also refreshed its branding around the initiative. Its primary mission is now expressed as "Put Real-World Value to Work," accompanied by the positioning "Built for the Agentic Economy."

The company says the combination reflects its effort to create infrastructure where both humans and autonomous agents can interact with real-world financial value onchain.

Sponsored Transactions Aim to Remove Gas Payment Friction

One of the most significant protocol-level components of the upgrade is Sponsored Transactions, which Pharos is introducing on its Testnet.

The system separates the entity initiating a blockchain transaction from the party responsible for paying the associated gas fee.

Under the traditional blockchain model, users generally need to maintain a balance of a network's native token to cover transaction costs. This requirement can create friction, particularly for new users unfamiliar with wallets or gas mechanisms.

Pharos' approach allows an application or approved sponsor to cover those costs while preserving the identity of the original transaction sender.

The capability could also become important for autonomous agents. Rather than requiring every agent interaction to follow the conventional user-pays-gas model, applications could create alternative payment structures for agent-driven transactions.

Pharos is also bringing AI directly into the user experience through its Pharos Port Agent Widget.

The feature introduces an intent-based approach to interacting with blockchain applications. Instead of manually navigating several menus or transaction steps, users can describe what they want to accomplish using natural language.

The initial implementation begins with Harbor. Users can ask the agent questions about their real-world asset positions, including information about vault maturity, yields, and redemption windows.

The agent interprets the request and prepares the corresponding action. Importantly, the user retains control over the final execution rather than handing complete authority to the AI system.

This model could simplify interactions with increasingly complicated RealFi products while preserving user oversight of transactions.

Pharos Launches AI Portal for Blockchain Developers

Developers are another major focus of the Agent Native rollout. Pharos is launching its AI portal at ai.pharos.xyz, bringing several developer resources into a unified environment.

The portal combines Pharos Chain MCP, Developer Docs MCP and the network's official SkillEngine, creating a central entry point for developers building AI-powered applications and agents on Pharos.

Pharos is also working with AI agent infrastructure provider Anvita Flow through an AnvitaMate × Pharos release.

The collaboration packages similar Pharos development capabilities into a local AI environment. As a result, developers can work with the network's infrastructure without repeatedly moving outside their existing development workspace.

Together, the tools are intended to reduce the technical friction involved in creating applications where AI agents interact directly with blockchain infrastructure.

Pharos Maps Out Agent-Native Roadmap Through 2028

Alongside the current upgrades, Pharos revealed a multi-year roadmap outlining how its Agent Native infrastructure is expected to evolve.

During Q4 2026, the network plans to launch Proof-of-Stake staking and continue advancing gas sponsorship capabilities on Testnet.

The roadmap expands significantly in 2027. Pharos plans to progressively deploy Agent Accounts, dedicated transaction interfaces for those accounts, and a feature it calls State Economy. These components are intended to provide more of the underlying infrastructure necessary for agents to operate directly onchain.

By 2028, Pharos aims to combine these developments into end-to-end Agent-Native workflows.

If implemented as planned, the resulting infrastructure would allow agents to interact with accounts, authorization systems, payments and blockchain applications through an integrated technology stack.

Pharos Sees Agent Native as More Than an AI Feature

Pharos co-founder and CEO Wish Wu said the initiative represents a broader evolution of the network rather than simply adding an AI feature to an existing blockchain application.

According to Wu, the company's RealFi strategy brings real-world value onchain, while Agent Native changes how users interact with that value.

The underlying blockchain provides the infrastructure connecting those two layers.

Wu also described AI agents as an emerging category of economic participants that will require dedicated accounts, authorization mechanisms and payment infrastructure to function effectively onchain.

Pharos' latest rollout is an attempt to build those components progressively rather than treating AI solely as an application-layer interface.

With Sponsored Transactions entering Testnet and new agent-focused user and developer tools arriving throughout Q4, the project is beginning the transition toward its longer-term Agent-Native Chain vision.

The key test will be whether this infrastructure can turn AI agents from blockchain assistants into practical economic participants capable of interacting with real-world financial assets while maintaining appropriate user authorization and control.

Pharos Network is a value discovery layer for agentic economies, working to make real-world value, AI agents, and institutional-grade assets openly accessible to all.

Pharos is purpose-built for high-performance RealFi and programmable financial markets. It combines deep parallel execution powered by the SALI engine, modular Special Processing Networks (SPNs), protocol-level compliance infrastructure, and native support for AI agents — including the x402 protocol — with compatibility across both EVM and WASM. The architecture is designed to support internet-scale markets spanning real-world assets, stablecoins, cross-border settlement, onchain yield, and agent-intermediated commerce.

Pharos' Mainnet, Pacific Ocean, launched in April 2026. The network builds its ecosystem through the RealFi Alliance alongside global financial infrastructure partners including Circle, Chainlink, Anchorage Digital, Centrifuge, and Morpho, connecting regulated capital markets with onchain liquidity venues. A $10 million builder incubator backs early teams working on RealFi and AI. Pharos is built by former senior executives and core engineers from Ant Group, and is backed by institutions across traditional finance and crypto, including Sumitomo Corporation, Flow Traders, SNZ, Hack VC, and Faction VC.