Key Takeaways
(P1) AntSeed on May 15 launched a peer-to-peer marketplace for artificial intelligence models with 20 providers, aiming to decentralize AI access by removing centralized aggregators and settling payments directly in USDC on the Base network.
(P2) "OpenRouter and similar aggregators helped define the market for unified AI access, but that market does not need to remain centralized," said Shahaf Antwarg, Co-Founder of AntSeed. "AntSeed gives AI consumers and providers a direct, peer-to-peer alternative where access, reputation, and payments are coordinated by the network rather than a single platform."
(P3) The platform uses a discovery protocol similar to BitTorrent, allowing buyers and providers to connect directly. Every transaction, including payment and delivery, is recorded on-chain, creating a portable and public reputation for providers. At launch, the network supports models including GPT and Claude Opus, alongside a Venice.ai inference pool powered by staked DIEM tokens.
(P4) AntSeed's launch challenges the model of established AI aggregators by offering a permissionless, crypto-native alternative. By enabling direct USDC payments and eliminating platform intermediaries, the project taps into the growing infrastructure for autonomous AI agents and on-chain economies, a market also being pursued by projects on Solana and by infrastructure providers like Circle.
AntSeed's model contrasts sharply with both traditional cloud marketplaces and the recent wave of semi-centralized agent payment systems. While platforms like Google Cloud's Pay.sh, built with the Solana Foundation, bring authorized API access for major services like Gemini and BigQuery, AntSeed is fully permissionless, with no central entity controlling which models can be listed.
The use of USDC on Base for settlement places AntSeed within a broader trend of leveraging stablecoins for real-world commerce beyond financial speculation. Circle, the issuer of USDC, recently raised $222 million to launch its own institutional blockchain, Arc, signaling significant investor demand for compliant, finance-grade blockchain infrastructure. AntSeed provides a direct use case for such infrastructure, creating a closed-loop economy where AI services are paid for in real-time with on-chain money.
The design, which requires no accounts or API keys, is explicitly tailored for autonomous AI agents that need to transact independently. This focus on non-human users is a key theme in the emerging on-chain agent economy.
The integration with Venice.ai's DIEM token further solidifies its crypto-native approach. Holders stake DIEM to provide inference power to the network and, in return, receive a stream of USDC payments from users accessing the models. "Seeing it extended to a permissionless network like AntSeed is exactly the kind of open ecosystem we hoped DIEM would help unlock," said Erik Voorhees, Founder of Venice.ai. As the market for AI agents that can autonomously pay for services grows, the competition between decentralized, permissionless networks like AntSeed and more structured, enterprise-focused gateways on chains like Solana is set to intensify.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
