• Teams from the companies are collaborating on how open identity and payment protocols can work together so businesses can trust transactions made by agents.
• At Money20/20, teams from Proof and Circle will demonstrate a demo of an AI agent presenting a verified Proof credential over x401 and paying in USDC over x402 from a Circle Agent Wallet.
  
  

BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Proof and Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) today announced a collaboration showing how verified legal identity and machine-native payments can work together in agent transactions. At Money20/20, teams from the companies will demonstrate a demo of an AI agent completing an identity-gated purchase where the agent presents a verified Proof credential using x401, Proof's open identity protocol, and pays the merchant in USDC over x402 using a Circle Agent Wallet.

THE PROBLEM IT SOLVES

AI agents can already find services, place orders and pay. The business on the other side still can't reliably tell who sent the agent or whether that person approved the transaction. Without that, the only safe choices are to block agents or let them through blind.

There is a second gap. Identity providers that have already verified a person have no practical way to be paid when that verification is reused somewhere new. A business that wants to rely on another company's identity check usually needs a contract with that provider first, which limits a verified identity to the few businesses that signed up in advance.

Two open protocols now address both halves of the problem. x402, which Circle supports across its agentic products, uses the web's HTTP 402 "Payment Required" response so a site can tell an agent what payment it needs. x401, which Proof published in June, uses the HTTP 401 "Unauthorized" response so a site can tell an agent what proof of identity it needs. One answers how an agent pays, and the other answers who it acts for. Used together, they also let a business pay an identity provider for each check on the spot, without a sales process or a negotiated agreement.

WHAT THE DEMO SHOWS

• An identity request alongside a price. A merchant responds to an agent with two requirements. The first is an x401 request naming the fact it needs, the credential issuers it trusts and how strongly the identity must have been verified. The second is an x402 payment request in USDC.
• A verified credential, disclosed selectively. The Proof wallet presents the person's verified credential along with a signed approval for that specific purchase. It proves only the relevant facts without revealing the rest of their ID. The merchant checks the credential's signature against Proof's published public keys, without calling Proof or storing personal information.
• Payment in USDC. The agent pays the merchant in USDC over x402 from a Circle Agent Wallet, and the order completes. The merchant keeps signed, tamper-evident evidence of who approved the purchase, which it can use if the transaction is later disputed, without receiving a full copy of the person’s ID document.
  
  

IDENTITY AND PAYMENTS, IN BOTH DIRECTIONS

Proof and Circle share an interest in how agent identity and agentic payments fit together, including how businesses could pay identity issuers for each verification in USDC over x402. Proof prices identity claims individually to confirm a single fact such as age. If those payments settle over x402, the protocol could run in both directions in one transaction: the shopper's agent pays the merchant, and the merchant pays the identity issuer.

"AI agents can already pay. What a merchant still can't see is who stands behind the payment and whether that person approved it. Our demo with Circle shows one exchange can answer both questions: verified identity from Proof and payment in USDC. That gives businesses a reason to say yes to agents instead of blocking them."
— Pat Kinsel, founder and chief executive officer, Proof

"Agents that can pay also need a way to show who they act for. At Money20/20, we're demonstrating what that might look like with Proof: a verified credential and a USDC payment in the same flow. Identity and payments are closely linked in the agentic economy, and we're continuing to explore how they come together so businesses can trust the transactions agents make.”
— Gagan Mac, VP Product, Circle

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE

Proof and Circle will show this flow end to end at Money20/20 in Las Vegas, October 19–21, at Proof booth 5069. On Monday, October 19th, Gagan Mac and Pat Kinsel will also discuss who vouches for an agent acting in a customer's name at Proof's CHICA panel on October 19. Developers can book a meeting and sign up for implementation sessions at www.proof.com/money-2020.

HOW THE IDENTITY IS ESTABLISHED

Each Proof credential comes from identity proofing certified by Kantara at NIST IAL2, a federal standard for strong identity verification. Proof's WebTrust-audited certificate authority issues the credential and ties it to a hardware-protected key. The person owns the credential and can reuse it across services instead of verifying again for each one.

AVAILABILITY

x401 is an open protocol available from Proof at proof.com/x401. Circle Agent Wallets and x402 payments are available through Circle Agent Stack at agents.circle.com. Consumers can claim a Proof credential at proof.com/id.

ABOUT PROOF

Proof operates identity infrastructure for high-consequence transactions, including a WebTrust-audited certificate authority, PKI-anchored credentials and a network of more than 8,000 businesses across mortgage, auto, wealth, insurance and enterprise. More than $1 trillion in transactions have been secured on the platform. Proof published x401 as an open protocol in June 2026 and is the first to put verified legal identity for AI agents into production. Learn more at proof.com.

ABOUT CIRCLE INTERNET GROUP, INC.

Circle (NYSE: CRCL) is one of the world's leading internet financial platform companies, building the foundation of a more open, global economy through programmable blockchain infrastructure, digital assets, and payment applications. Circle's platform includes the world's largest stablecoin network anchored by USDC, Circle Payments Network for global money movement, and Arc, an enterprise-grade blockchain designed to become the Economic OS for the internet. Enterprises, financial institutions, and developers use Circle to power trusted, internet-scale financial innovation.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Proof: press@proof.com
Circle: press@circle.com