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Agentic Economy on Arc

The Agent Economy Built for Sub-Cent Transactions

In this hybrid hackathon powered by Arc and Circle, developers will build the next generation of Agentic economic applications using Circle’s Nanopayments infrastructure with settlement on Arc in USDC.


For the first time, high-frequency, usage-based transactions between users, APIs, and AI agents can operate without gas overhead eroding margin. Arc provides stablecoin-native settlement with predictable, dollar-denominated USDC fees and deterministic, sub-second finality — enabling real-time coordination and economically viable per-action pricing at scale.


📅 April 20 – 26, 2026

• Apr 20 – 25 (Online): Submit projects by Apr 25.

Apr 25 (On-site Build - SF, CA): Teams refine projects.

Apr 26 (On-site Demos & Awards - SF, CA): Live pitches & winners announced.

Get guidance from Arc and Circle experts through on-site support.


📍 On-site Venue (April 25-26):

MindsDB SF AI Collective

3154 17th St, San Francisco, California, USA


🤝 Go solo or team up, it's your flow.


🏆 Compete for a $15,000+ Prize Pool.


📍 Please note: If approved for the on-site experience, you’ll also have the opportunity to showcase your project live. Travel and accommodation will not be covered.


🧑🏻‍💻 Secure your spot now – sign up before the Kick-Off Stream!

Agentic Economy on Arc event thumbnail

Hackathon Overview

Our AI hackathon brought together a diverse group of participants, who collaborated to develop a variety of impressive projects based on:

2051

Participants

599

Teams

227

AI Applications

Winners and Finalists

  • We are in the process of selecting the finalist teams.
  • Your voice matters! Vote on your favorite projects in the section below.
  • Join us for the winner announcement stream, which will be streamed live on Twitch.

This event has now ended, but you can still register for upcoming events on lablab.ai. We look forward to seeing you at the next one!

Check out Upcoming Events →
About

Circle (NYSE: CRCL) is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of digital currencies and public blockchains for payments, commerce, and financial applications worldwide. Circle is building the world’s largest, most-widely used, stablecoin network, and issues, through its regulated affiliates, USDC and EURC stablecoins. 
Arc is the purpose-built L1 blockchain from Circle and serves as the Economic OS for the internet — powering the programmable trust layer and transaction engine where capital, humans, and machines coordinate to drive real economic growth.  

Together, Nanopayments and Arc unlock a new economic primitive for the internet: programmable value that is finally viable at high frequency. 

Key benefits for developers:
• Process sub-cent transactions on-chain, gas-free, with full control of funds 
• Align pricing precisely with usage — no margin lost to gas fees
• Charge per API call, per query, per millisecond of compute, or per action

Agentic Economy in action:
• APIs monetize every request
• AI agents pay for data and services in real time
• Compute marketplaces priced by usage
• Machine-to-machine commerce without intermediaries

The internet made information programmable.

Circle Nanopayments + Arc make value programmable — and economically viable. 

Challenge

Build the Agentic Economy on Arc using USDC and Nanopayments.

Your mission is to design and ship an application, agent, or developer tool that leverages programmable USDC and Nanopayments for economically viable transactions to unlock new economic models for APIs, AI Agents, marketplaces, or machine-to-machine commerce.


You’ll choose one of the tracks below (or naturally align to one) and submit a working demo plus a clear explanation of your use case and feedback. You must align your project with at least one track. Winners are selected based on the best overall solutions, regardless of track. All submissions must: •  Demonstrate real per-action pricing (≤ $0.01)  Show transaction frequency data (at least 50+ onchain transactions in demo) • Include a margin explanation: why this model would fail with traditional gas costs

This forces economic proof, not just a demo. Tracks:

🪙 Per-API Monetization Engine Build an API that charges per request using USDC, demonstrating viable per-call pricing at high frequency.


🤖 Agent-to-Agent Payment Loop

Create autonomous agents that pay and receive value in real time, proving machine-to-machine commerce without batching or custodial control.


🧮 Usage-Based Compute Billing

Design an application that charges per query, per compute unit, or per task with real-time settlement aligned to actual usage.


🛒 Real-Time Micro-Commerce Flow

Build a buyer or seller experience where economic activity is triggered and settled per interaction, not per subscription.


💡 Product Feedback Incentive

  • We’re offering $500 USDC in rewards to the teams that provide the most detailed and helpful feedback. To be eligible, teams must complete the feedback field as part of their final project submission.

Your mission is to build and launch an AI-native product using X402 Payments - a programmable payments infrastructure designed for the next generation of agentic and automated economies.


In this edition of Launch & Fund Your Startup, you’ll have 6 days to validate an idea, build a working prototype, and present a credible path toward real users and on-chain revenue.

This challenge is open to everyone - from early-stage founders to existing startups looking to expand or pivot their products.


Your submission should clearly show how your solution integrates or reimagines X402 Payments in the context of real-world financial interaction



Tracks
Choose one - or mix and match. Each track explores a core use case of programmable payments in the age of agentic systems:


🤖 Agent-to-Agent Payments

Challenge: Build a system where two or more agents autonomously trigger and settle payments—e.g., for usage-based services, access control, or dynamic pricing. Your product should demonstrate a working agentic payment loop with minimal human input.




🧑‍💼Consumer AI Payments

Challenge: Develop an AI assistant that can make payments on a user’s behalf—with built-in rules like spending limits, approval checkpoints, or identity verification (KYC/AML). Showcase how your product handles decision-making, compliance, and safeguards.




🏢 B2B FinOps & Compliance

Challenge: Build a tool for businesses to manage real-time payments and financial operations—like tracking cash flow, enforcing policies, or generating audit-ready records. Highlight automation, accuracy, and visibility into payment activity.




🛒 On-chain Commerce Primitives

Challenge: Launch a digital product or service with a built-in revenue model using X402. Think: token-gated access, real-time rev-splits, or instant payouts to contributors. Your prototype should demonstrate seamless, trustless commerce flows.



Technology 
& Access

Technology & Access

To build your project, you will use Arc (settlement layer), USDC (value), and Circle developer infrastructure such as Gateway, Nanopayments, and x402 (web-native payment standard) where available.


🔒 Required Technologies:

• Arc - All transactions settle on Arc, an EVM-compatible Layer-1.

• USDC - USDC is the native gas token and stablecoin on Arc and is used for gas fees, transfers, and smart contract interactions.

• Circle Nanopayments - Infrastructure enabling economically viable sub-cent, high-frequency transactions.


🔒 Additional Recommended Technologies:

• Circle Wallets - Recommended core wallet solution for this hackathon.

Use Circle Wallets as the primary wallet infrastructure in your submission to create secure, programmable wallets for users and agents.

• Circle Gateway for a unified USDC balance instantly accessible crosschain

• Circle Bridge Kit for moving USDC across chains


🧩 3rd Party Tools:

• x402 facilitator for verifying and submitting x402 payments


Vyper tooling and reference implementations for agentic payments and trustless AI agent infrastructure:

• Circle-titanoboa-sdk bridges Vyper + Titanoboa + x402 payments

• Vyper-agentic-payments clearly focused on agent-driven payment flows

• ERC-8004-vyper implements ERC-8004 trust layer for autonomous agents (identity, reputation, validation)


Use the tools that best fit your track and product. 


🧠 Digital Resources via Circle Nanopayments:
Leverage Circle Nanopayments and x402 to programmatically access premium, real-time data services and APIs powered by AIsa. These endpoints demonstrate how developers can monetize and consume data at a per-request level using USDC.

👉 Explore the full API collection and integration examples on GitHub

🧰 Developer Resources:

 Arc Documentation

• Nanopayments Documentation

• Circle Documentation 

 Circle Github

• Circle Developer Account

• Youtube

• Testnet faucet

• Circle Developer Blog


To get started, we highly encourage all participants to create a Circle Developer Account and use the same email they provide during hackathon registration. 

Technology partners

Gemini is Google’s family of next-generation multimodal AI models designed for agent-driven commerce, capable of reasoning across text, images, code, video, and audio. Gemini also supports Function Calling, allowing agents to securely interact with Circle APIs and smart contracts as part of real-world payment and settlement workflows.


Google AI Studio is a browser-based environment where developers and creators can easily explore and prototype with Gemini models - test prompts, refine outputs, and experiment with different modalities before integrating them into real-world applications through the Gemini API.

Challenge:

Build with Gemini models and Google AI Studio to power the intelligence and interface of your agents, then run them on Arc with USDC for agent-driven commerce.


Your project should:

  • • Use Gemini (via Google AI Studio or Gemini API) for reasoning, chat, or multimodal understanding, and Function Calling, enabling agents to interact directly with Circle APIs and smart contracts. 

  • • Run agent-driven or automated workflows that make decisions based on user input, data, or context.

  • • Coordinate and settle value on Arc with USDC using Circle infrastructure (e.g. Circle Wallets, Circle CCTP/Bridge Kit, Circle Gateway) as part of your commerce flow (subscriptions, usage-based APIs, tipping, marketplace payments, etc.).


Recommended Gemini Models:

Participants are encouraged to select the Gemini model that best fits their agent use case:


  • Gemini 3 Flash
    Recommended for transactional and payment agents. Optimized for speed and low latency, making it ideal for real-time commerce flows such as checkout, payment execution, balance checks, and on-chain confirmations.


    Gemini 3 Pro

    Designed for advanced reasoning and “Deep Think” capabilities. Ideal for agents that need to negotiate prices, analyze complex transaction histories, manage treasuries, or coordinate multi-step financial workflows.


Multimodal Commerce Examples:

Gemini’s multimodal capabilities enable new forms of agent-driven commerce, such as:

  • • Using vision models to verify physical goods or delivery proof before releasing a USDC payment

  • • Analyzing invoice or receipt images to automate settlement, reconciliation, or refunds on Arc


Access to Technology:

Participants can explore Gemini through two main options - both include free access:

  • 🌐 Google AI Studio: A free, browser-based IDE for experimenting with Gemini. You can write prompts, test outputs, tweak parameters, and prototype without needing to set up billing or any API keys. Perfect for prototyping and rapid iteration during the hackathon.

  • 💻 Gemini API For developers ready to integrate Gemini directly into their apps. The free tier includes a monthly allowance of tokens for text and multimodal inputs/outputs, letting you test and build with Gemini’s core models at no cost. Paid usage only applies for higher-volume or production-level apps.

    🔓 Google Cloud Credits:
    New Google Cloud accounts receive $300 in free Google Cloud credits, valid for 90 days.
    These credits can be used across eligible Google Cloud services, including Gemini API usage, subject to Google Cloud’s standard terms and regional availability.

👉 Learn more about Google Cloud’s free tier

  • Note: After the free credits are used or expire, continued usage of billable services requires enabling billing on your Google Cloud account. Charges only apply if you choose to continue using paid services.

🚀 How to Get Started

1. Visit the Gemini docs
2. Follow the Quickstart Guide to explore Gemini in AI Studio

3. Experiment with text, code, images, video, or audio prompts
4. Build and test your multimodal agents or workflows


📘 Resources:


Featherless provides access to a wide range of specialized AI models across domains such as coding, medical, legal, and multilingual use cases. It enables developers to build agent-driven, cost-efficient AI systems, making it a strong fit for projects leveraging USDC and the Agentic Economy on Arc.

 

Challenge:

Specialized Model Routing EngineBuild an agent or API that routes each incoming task to the most suitable model from the Featherless catalog. Each inference should be priced and settled per request using USDC via Arc, demonstrating improved cost efficiency and output quality compared to general-purpose models.


Access to Technology:

Featherless will provide $25 in credits per participant, available to up to 1,000 participants on a first-come, first-served basis. Access is valid for 1 month from activation.

👉 To activate your access, follow the setup guide below:

🔘 Open Featherless Setup Guide (Includes QR & Free Access)


🚀
How to Get Started with Featherless

  1. 1. Open the setup guide using the link above

    2. Scan the QR code or follow the signup link inside the guide

    3. Create your account and activate your free Premium access

    4. Generate your API key from your account dashboard

    5. Choose a model from the catalog and start building

  2.  

📘 Resources:

  1. • Featherless Platform Overview

Featherless Documentation 
Featherless Quickstart

⚠️
Important Notes:

• Feather Premium access is valid for 1 month from activation
• Access is provided directly by Featherless and subject to their terms and availability
• lablab.ai is not responsible for access provisioning or usage limitations
• Participants are responsible for managing their API usage and securing their API keys

 AI/ML API provides access to a wide range of state-of-the-art AI models, including Gemini, Claude, and other leading models, through a unified API. It enables developers to quickly experiment, build, and scale AI-powered applications across text, image, and multimodal use cases.


Access to Technology:

AI/ML API will provide $10 in credits per participant, available to up to 1,000 participants. Access is activated via a promo code during signup.

Access is valid until the winners announcment on the 26th of April.


👉 Claim your unique promo here: AI/ML API Coupon


🚀 How to Get Started with AI/ML API

• Register on the AI/ML API website
• Go to the billing section
• Click redeem promocode on the banner
• Enter your unique promo code (Instantly receive $10 on your account)

• Up to 1,000 participants. First come first served.

 For the technical support, visit AI/ML API Discord.   


Pro tip: start with smaller models for quick tests. Scale up when it counts


⚠️ Important Notes:

 Credits are provided by AI/ML API and are subject to their delivery

• Credits are limited to 1,000 participants and subject to availability

• AI/ML API is a subscription-based service

• If you do not plan to continue using the service after the hackathon, make sure to cancel your subscription to avoid charges

• lablab.ai is not responsible for credit distribution or billing

🎓 Workshops

Get inspired and boost your skills with exclusive sessions from our partners and experts. Watch them anytime!
lablab.ai

Speaker: Joanna Slupczewska  

Head of Marketing 

Topic: Agentic Economy on Arc Hackathon Kick-Off Stream
Featherless AI

Speaker: Isaac Gemal
Developer relations

Topic: Featherless AI - Quick Start and Live Demo

AIsa

Speaker: Karen Sheng

Chief Product Officer

Topic: Pay-Per-Call AIsa APIs via Nanopayments

Prizes
🏆 Main Hackathon Winners (USDC) 

On-site prizes

🥇 1st place -
💰
$3,000 in USDC

🥈2nd place

💰 $1,500 in USDC

🥉3rd place

💰 $1,000 in USDC

Online prizes

🥇 1st place
💰 $2,500 in USDC

🥈2nd place

💰 $1,500 in USDC

🏆 Product Feedback Incentive

💰 Rewards from $500 in USDC

💰 $500 USDC in rewards will be awarded to the teams that provide the most helpful and detailed feedback in the submission form as part of their final project.

Open to all participants (On-site & Online).

On-site prizes

🥇1st place - $3,000 in Cash, 1000 Man-Hour credits worth $1500

🥈2nd place - $2,000 in Cash, 500 Man-Hour credits worth $750

🥉3rd place -  $1,000 in Cash, 300 Man-Hour credits worth $450
🥇 1st place - 💰 $3,000 in USDC

🥈2nd place
 - 💰 $1,500 in USDC

🥉3rd place 
-  💰 $1,000 in USDC

Online prizes

🥇 1st place - $500 in Cash, 100 Man-Hour credits worth $150
🏆 Product Feedback Incentive
💰 $500 USDC in rewards will be awarded to the teams that provide the most helpful and detailed feedback in the submission form as part of their final project.

Open to all participants (On-site & Online).
🥇 1st place - 💰 $2,500 in USDC

🥈2nd place
 - 💰 $1,500 in USDC
💰 Rewards from $500 in USDC
🏆Google Prizes 

On-site prizes

🥇 1st place - 💰 $2,000

🥈2nd place
 - 💰 $1,400

🥉3rd place 
-  💰 $800 
🥇 1st place - 💰 $2,000

🥈2nd place
 - 💰 $1,400

🥉3rd place 
-  💰 $800 

Online prizes

🥇 1st place - 💰 $1,200

🥈2nd place - 💰 $600
🥇 1st place - 💰 $1,200

🥈2nd place
 - 💰 $600
🏆Featherless Prizes 

🥇 1st place - ⚡500 Featherless inference credits

🥈2nd place
 - ⚡300 Featherless inference credits

🥉3rd place 
- ⚡100 Featherless inference credits

Please note: Participation in lablab.ai hackathons is voluntary. Prizes and opportunities depend on eligibility, availability, and third-party sponsors, for whom lablab.ai is not responsible. Hackathon rules, prizes, and terms may change or be canceled at our discretion. Submissions must be original and MIT-compliant. Prize distribution may take up to 90 days.

Community & Social Channels


Stay connected with the teams behind the hackathon and follow along for updates, highlights, and future opportunities.

lablab.ai
NativelyAI
Circle
Arc

What to submit?

📋 Basic Information

• Project Title

Short Description

Long Description

• Technology & Category Tags

📸 Cover Image and Presentation

• Cover Image

• Video Presentation

• Slide Presentation

💻 App Hosting & Code Repository

• Public GitHub Repository

• Demo Application Platform

• Application URL

📝 Circle Product Feedback (Required)

Each team must complete the “Circle Product Feedback” field as part of their final project submission.

💡 The most detailed and helpful responses will be eligible for the Product Feedback Incentive ($500 USDC in rewards).

Include:

  • • Which Circle products you used (e.g. Arc, USDC, Circle Wallets, Circle Gateway, Circle CCTP/Bridge Kit, Nanopayments)

  • • Why you chose these products for your use case

  • • What worked well during development

  • • What could be improved

  • • Any recommendations to make the product or developer experience more seamless or scalable


    Please ensure your submission clearly states which challenge track you participated in and which Circle products were used


📸 Required: Transaction Flow Demonstration (Video)

Your submission video must clearly demonstrate how a USDC transaction is processed end-to-end using Circle infrastructure and Arc settlement, including:

  • • A transaction executed via the Circle Developer Console
    • Verification of that transaction on the Arc Block Explorer


    This helps judges validate correct integration and on-chain execution

    All submissions must demonstrate real per-action pricing (≤ $0.01), show transaction frequency data (at least 50+ onchain transactions in demo) and include a margin explanation: why this model would fail with traditional gas costs.


For further details and guidance, please visit Submission Guidelines


lablab.ai

Topic: Hackathon Submissions Process

▶️ Watch Video
Judging Criteria
Application of Technology
How effectively the chosen model(s) are integrated into the solution.
Presentation
The clarity and effectiveness of the project presentation.
Business Value
The impact and practical value, considering how well it fits into business areas.
Originality
The uniqueness & creativity of the solution, highlighting approaches and ability to demonstrate  behaviors. 

Hackathon Details

Join lablab.ai hackathon and innovate using the latest models in the market. Discover all the relevant details below.

🗓️ Where and when

The start date of the hackathon is mentioned according to the date specified on the hackathon page, cover and schedule. The hackathon will take place on the lablab.ai platform and lablab.ai Discord server.

🦸🏼‍♂️ Who can join?

Everyone is welcome to participate, regardless of previous AI or coding experience! We encourage anyone with a passion for AI or an interest in exploring how it can be used in their field to join.

😅 What about teams?

If you don't have a team, don't worry! You can connect with other participants from all over the world on our dashboard or Discord server. We also recommend checking out our Discord server to find teammates and bounce around ideas. You can join the server here.

🛠️ How to participate

The hackathon will take place online on lablab.ai platform and lablab.ai Discord Server. Please register for both in order to participate. To participate click the "Enroll" button at the bottom of the page and read our Hackathon Guidelines and Getting Started Guide.

🧠 Get prepared / Use Lablab.ai to Learn About AI

To get ready for the hackathon, visit our AI Tech pages and read up on all the available technologies. You can also check out our tutorials page for more information on how to use them. Get a head start on your project by using the resources on lablab.ai! 

Speakers, Mentors & Judges

Corey Cooper
Corey Cooper
Senior Manager, Developer Relations and Ecosystem Marketing
Circle
Evelina Kaluzhner
Evelina Kaluzhner
Sr. Principal Product Manager
Circle
Hui Jing Chen
Hui Jing Chen
Senior Manager, Developer Relations and Ecosystem Marketing, APAC
Circle
Mallika Rao
Mallika Rao
Engineering Lead-Netflix, Walmart, Twitter
Netflix
Suneeth Maraboina
Suneeth Maraboina
Technology Leader
Apple
Sanem Avcil
Sanem Avcil
AI & Blockchain Advisor
Kaisvault
Naman Goyal
Naman Goyal
Machine Learning Engineer
Pawel Czech
Pawel Czech
CEO
Surge
Neha Komma
Neha Komma
VP of Product, Payments
Circle
Anthony Kelani
Anthony Kelani
Director of Ecosystem Growth & Strategy
Circle
Shaktesh Pandey
Shaktesh Pandey
AI Engineer | GenAI Systems | RAG Architect | LLMOps
Free lancer
Mahati Kumar
Mahati Kumar
Software Engineer
Meta
Rahul Gupta
Rahul Gupta
Head of AI Foundry
Evergreen
Zhipeng Yan
Zhipeng Yan
Software Engineer
Google DeepMind
Andrea Marazzi
Andrea Marazzi
Founder & CCO
NativelyAI
Blessing Adesiji
Blessing Adesiji
Developer Relations Manager, EMEA
Circle
Karen Sheng
Karen Sheng
Chief Product Officer
AIsa
Dharmendra Singh
Dharmendra Singh
Senior Software Engineering Manager
Workday
Vasu Raj Jain
Vasu Raj Jain
Senior Software Engineer
amazon
Isaac Gemal
Isaac Gemal
Developer relations
Featherless AI
Japjit Singh
Japjit Singh
Applied AI Product Lead
Google cloud
Luca Franceschini
Luca Franceschini
Developer Relations
Vyper
Elton Tay
Elton Tay
Developer Relations Lead, APAC
Circle
Aanjanaye Kajaria
Aanjanaye Kajaria
Founder & CEO
Fumav
Anton Kiselev
Anton Kiselev
Lead backend developer
dapt
Neha Manjunath
Neha Manjunath
Senior Research Scientist
Hippocratic AI
Sergey Nuzhnyy
Sergey Nuzhnyy
Head of Developer Relations
AI/ML API
Santosh Mutyala
Santosh Mutyala
Developer relations
Featherless AI
Pawel Czech
Pawel Czech
CEO
Surge
Blessing Adesiji
Blessing Adesiji
Developer Relations Manager, EMEA
Circle
Corey Cooper
Corey Cooper
Senior Manager, Developer Relations and Ecosystem Marketing
Circle
Neha Komma
Neha Komma
VP of Product, Payments
Circle
Hui Jing Chen
Hui Jing Chen
Senior Manager, Developer Relations and Ecosystem Marketing, APAC
Circle
Karen Sheng
Karen Sheng
Chief Product Officer
AIsa
Rahul Gupta
Rahul Gupta
Head of AI Foundry
Evergreen
Sanem Avcil
Sanem Avcil
AI & Blockchain Advisor
Kaisvault
Shaktesh Pandey
Shaktesh Pandey
AI Engineer | GenAI Systems | RAG Architect | LLMOps
Free lancer
Suneeth Maraboina
Suneeth Maraboina
Technology Leader
Apple
Mahati Kumar
Mahati Kumar
Software Engineer
Meta
Isaac Gemal
Isaac Gemal
Developer relations
Featherless AI
Andrea Marazzi
Andrea Marazzi
Founder & CCO
NativelyAI
Luca Franceschini
Luca Franceschini
Developer Relations
Vyper
Anthony Kelani
Anthony Kelani
Director of Ecosystem Growth & Strategy
Circle
Elton Tay
Elton Tay
Developer Relations Lead, APAC
Circle
Evelina Kaluzhner
Evelina Kaluzhner
Sr. Principal Product Manager
Circle
Aanjanaye Kajaria
Aanjanaye Kajaria
Founder & CEO
Fumav
Mallika Rao
Mallika Rao
Engineering Lead-Netflix, Walmart, Twitter
Netflix
Japjit Singh
Japjit Singh
Applied AI Product Lead
Google cloud
Neha Manjunath
Neha Manjunath
Senior Research Scientist
Hippocratic AI
Vasu Raj Jain
Vasu Raj Jain
Senior Software Engineer
amazon
Dharmendra Singh
Dharmendra Singh
Senior Software Engineering Manager
Workday

Event Schedule

  • To be announced

Winner Submissions 🏆

Submitted concepts, prototypes and pitches

Submissions from the teams participating in the Agentic Economy on Arc event and making it to the end 👊

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