Merchants decide which agents get in, and they need a reason to say yes.
During our Money20/20 panel discussion, Visa Intelligent Commerce’s Ines Clark set the bar in two parts. The payment has to stay inside its guardrails, meaning the right category and the right spend amount, and it has to match the intent the person expressed. The agent also has to be verified as a trusted agent before the merchant lets it in.
x401 gives the merchant that check. A site asks the agent for proof of who it represents and a signed approval of the exact terms, and lets in the ones that can show both.
🔗 Watch the full panel discussion: hubs.la/Q04D6cqs0
During our panel discussion at Money20/20, Haley Stelzer-Monahan of @TDBank_US shared what a bank needs before agents get more room: limits, guardrails, and auditability.
TD's corporate clients are already putting agents on invoice matching, reconciliation, forecasting, and chasing down missing remittance data. The agent prepares the payment, with a human still in the loop. As agents take on more of that work, every item on Haley's list becomes a record the bank has to be able to check.
A verified human and a signed mandate are two of those records, and x401 is how a site asks an agent for them.
🔗 Watch the full panel discussion: hubs.la/Q04D635x0
A policy and a mandate are two different things, and @gaganmac drew the line with one example during our Money20/20 panel discussion.
A policy is a standing rule in a wallet: "spend up to $5,000, never more than $100 per transaction." A mandate is the instruction behind a single purchase: "I authorize you to spend up to $250 for getting this service."
Wallets already enforce policies well. In Gagan's words, "I think the explicit mandates are the missing piece."
With x401, the person signs the exact terms of the transaction, and if the amount or the recipient changes, the signature stops verifying. And paired with x402, the agent presents a verified credential and pays in USDC.
🔗 Watch the full panel discussion: hubs.la/Q04CLJMp0
Days before #Money2020, we launched x401, an open protocol that lets any website or API ask an AI agent who it's acting for and what that person approved. It already works with Meta's Muse, ChatGPT, Grok and Claude.
During the event, we hosted an evening at CHICA in The Venetian and put that question to @TDBank_US, Visa Intelligent Commerce, and @Circle, in a panel hosted by @sytaylor.
A bank answers for disputed payments, a network decides which agents get in, and a wallet moves the money. All three need to know which verified person is behind the agent and exactly what that person approved.
Thank you to everyone who joined us! And if you're having FOMO, you can watch the full session on-demand: hubs.la/Q04CPtFk0
#AgenticCommerce #x401
Proof retweeted
The emerging standard x401 protocol fixes this --> x401.id
I'm shaking my head at "KYA". Banks and merchants don't want to know the agent, they want to know what the consumer permissioned and restrict the agents abilty to act within that authorization. Perhaps we should call it "register and restrict your agent". That is what Stripe, Walmart and Amex are all doing. Its all about agent control.. not about knowing them.
Agentic commerce is here. The proof of authority is missing.
Say an agent spends $250 on a service for you, and you dispute the charge a week later. Your bank asks who authorized it, the merchant has never dealt with that agent, and the network wants evidence, yet every one of them is working from a record built for a person clicking a buy button.
At #Money2020, we brought together leaders from
Visa Intelligent Commerce, @TDBank_US, @circle , and our own @patk for a panel discussion moderated by @sytaylor.
When asked to pick a side, block agents or allow them, the panel answered “We are team authorized.” ✅
Agents are already clicking “buy,” so the disputes are coming whether the records are ready or not.
We'll have the full session available on-demand soon. In the meantime, check out the recap: hubs.la/Q04BVhJC0
A Worker gets a request from an AI agent. It can’t tell who sent it, or whether that person approved this. x401 now works with Cloudflare Workers: the Worker asks, the person approves in their Proof wallet, the Worker verifies. See it at #Money2020, Booth 5069: hubs.la/Q04BGT8R0
Proof retweeted
Circle 🤝 @proof
With Proof, we’re exploring how agents can prove who they act for and pay in USDC in one exchange.
Verified identity through x401. USDC payments through x402 and Circle Agent Wallets.
See the joint demo at @money2020, booth 5069.
globenewswire.com/news-relea…
Proof + @circle: At Money2020, both teams will share a demo of an AI agent proving who they act on behalf of (x401) and paying in @USDC (x402) in the same exchange. See it live at #Money2020, booth 5069: hubs.la/Q04BzGrL0
Proof retweeted
Founder and CEO @proof, @patk on verifying AI agents instead of just blocking them
"Prior to today, for a lot of our customers, the answer is block."
"Authentication is not authorization."
"You sign into your bank, your trading account, whatever it may be, you have a valid session, but they still make you do other things. They make you do FMF or MFA. They make you do SMS OTP. They make you show a license."
"These industries have real obligations to capture identity and consent in these transactions, and that's really what we have enabled today in a seamless manner."
A valid session was never proof of permission, and banks are now building the extra step agents will have to clear.
Don't block agents. Identify them.
@sytaylor is joined by @patk , founder and CEO @proof
Pat Kinsel has built an open framework to identify agents that is compatible with how banks do KYC today.
It's called x401, built on the internet's HTTP 401 "authorization is required"
But the really clever bit is the fact that it then uses verifiable credentials that are IAL2 certified to prove the authentication for the underlying human.
Why's that clever?
Because that's the same standard the US government published under the National Institute of Science and Technology NIST, and the one that FinCEN recently gave guidance on as being usable in bank Customer Identification Programs (CIP).
Check out the entire video to know more
Timestamps:
00:00 Proof launches x401 to bring trusted identity to AI agents
01:25 How x401 and verifiable credentials establish cryptographic identity
02:45 Should businesses block AI agents or verify their authority?
03:30 Why authentication alone cannot satisfy financial institutions' compliance obligations
04:34 Amazon's agent blocking, credential sharing risks and explicit consent
06:18 How x401 complements x402 payments and stablecoin-powered machine transactions
08:24 Transaction signing and binding prove an agent has delegated authority
10:00 How independent audits and identity standards establish trust in Proof
11:15 Why open identity standards matter for interoperability and stablecoin adoption
12:20 How verifiable authorization reduces payment fraud and addresses liability
Who vouches for an AI agent acting in your customer’s name? Until today, nobody. Now the open x401 protocol is live: any site can ask an agent for verified legal identity and signed approval. No Proof contract. See it at Money20/20, booth 5069: hubs.la/Q04BfNkW0
Recruiters lose an average of 42 hours per job posting to candidates who don't exist. ⌛
We’ll be at HR Tech next week showing hiring teams what an identity check can look like inside hiring workflows: hubs.la/Q04B0mQ00
#HRTech #TalentAcquisition #Recruiting #HiringFraud
During #Money2020, we’ll be bringing together leaders from fintechs, banks, networks and platforms. Join us for refreshments, and an exclusive panel hosted by Simon Taylor of Brainfood - joined by TD Bank, Circle, Visa Intelligent Commerce, and Proof. 🔗 hubs.la/Q04B0lX20
We're taking over CHICA on Money Row for an evening built around that idea, with a panel moderated by Simon Taylor of Brainfood, featuring speakers from Visa Intelligent Commerce, TD Bank, and Proof.
🔗 hubs.la/Q04zcTQZ0
The person on camera in a remote closing can now be generated in real time.
Proof analyzes the live video while the notarization is happening. 400+ risk signals, passive and active, resolved into a single score.
Learn more at #ALTAone: hubs.la/Q04yzXMW0
Proof built cryptographic identity infrastructure: a persistent, verifiable record of authorization that any party can verify independently, without relying on the institution's own logs.
Join us on October 6th to see what this looks like: hubs.la/Q04xyf-10
On Sep 20, anyone who pointed Meta's Muse at Amazon got blocked.
Blocking is expensive, and turns away good traffic with the bad.
Instead, we verify the person once and issue a credential they hold - so you get to say yes.
Money20/20 next month: hubs.la/Q04yqcR30
The hardest part about impersonation fraud is that a synthetic signer looks completely ordinary. That gap is exactly where real estate fraud is accelerating.
Proof closes that gap to flag what a human eye can't.
Grab time with the team at ALTA ONE: hubs.la/Q04ylJdT0
