NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- zerohash, the leading onchain infrastructure provider, today came out of stealth on its applied AI program with two announcements. First, zerohash has acquired an infrastructure stack covering agent authentication, permissioning, and machine-initiated financial transactions. Second, it has appointed the stack’s creator, Mark Meadows, as Head of Applied AI. Both moves come as zerohash expands its Agentic Finance Suite, built for a world in which AI agents, as well as people, initiate and manage financial transactions.
Meadows joins zerohash from NASA, where he was a research scientist with the agency’s Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Program. His career spans applied AI, robotics, and blockchain, including more than two decades building AI systems at organizations such as Xerox PARC and Stanford Research Institute.
The acquired technology and IP portfolio was developed for over a decade, well before the current wave of AI agents, and covers the foundational architecture agents now require. For example, Meadows’s 2015 voice-to-blockchain transaction patent, now part of the acquired portfolio, has been cited by more than 140 later-filed patents, including those from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Capital One, USAA, Fidelity, Vanguard, Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal.
As agents take on the work of moving money, discovering products, and executing trades, the infrastructure underneath must support machine-initiated authentication and permissioning at the same standard as human-initiated activity. This extends the identity verification, permissioning, and attestation zerohash already performs on every transaction to agent-initiated activity, giving partners a trusted and regulated way to let their customers put agents to work. Meadows and the Applied AI team will lead that vision and build that layer:
- Agent identity and permissioning, for human control. Every agent credential resolves to a verified person or institution, and that principal sets what the agent may do, where, and up to what amount. Permissions are configurable by each partner and revocable at any time.
- Verifiable compliance. Know Your Agent (KYA) screening and attestation on every agent-initiated transaction, so partners and regulators can see what was done, by which agent, and under whose authority.
- Settlement at machine speed. The same regulated rails, reached today through zerohash's API, SDKs, and MCP suite, with Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) support to follow.
“Agents are going to be the biggest new participants in the financial system,” said Edward Woodford, Founder and CEO of zerohash. “Every financial institution and enterprise that moves value will want to put agents to work, and they’ll need the same regulated infrastructure that zerohash extends to humans today. We’re building for an agentic world now. Mark has spent over a decade on exactly this, from patents on agent identity to a working bot-to-bot economy, and there’s nobody better to lead it.”
“Agents are about to become the most active participants in the financial system, and almost none of the infrastructure they will run on was built with them in mind,” said Mark Meadows, Head of Applied AI at zerohash. “It was built for humans making decisions one at a time. Agents need to authenticate, decide, and transact continuously, at machine speed, in a way people can trust and verify. zerohash is the first place I have seen with the regulatory standing and the technical foundation to build that answer.”
About zerohash
zerohash is a leading onchain infrastructure provider, offering access to crypto, stablecoins, and tokenized assets. Its API, embeddable dev-kits and MCP suite enable innovators to seamlessly launch solutions across cross-border payments, commerce, trading, remittance, payroll, tokenization, and on/off-ramps. The company has a global regulatory footprint across the EU, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, and the U.S., and operates regulated entities in 51 U.S. jurisdictions. For more information, visit zerohash.com.
Disclosures
zerohash services and product offerings may not be available in all jurisdictions, including New York. zerohash accounts are not subject to FDIC or SIPC protections, or any such equivalent protections that may exist outside of the US. zerohash's technical support and enablement of any asset is not an endorsement of such asset and is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any crypto asset. zerohash is not registered with the SEC or FINRA. zerohash llc is licensed as a money transmitter and to engage in Virtual Currency Business Activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services. For additional information please see zerohash's US licenses and disclosures page. NMLS ID #1699379.
