Last updated 3 weeks ago
Agentic AI today cannot execute real-time micropayments at scale. Together with Deutsche Telekom and Cardano , we address the need for high-frequency, trusted transactions in telecom and the AI space.
Enabling instant micropayments for agentic AI: a Telecom-hosted API gateway, SDKs, and validated prototypes with Europe’s largest telco by integrate Perun as Cardano’s Layer-2
Please provide your proposal title
Economy of AI Agents, powered by Cardano&Deutsche Telekom
Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA
700000
Please specify how many months you expect your project to last
9
Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated
No
Original Language
en
What is the problem you want to solve?
Agentic AI today cannot execute real-time micropayments at scale. Together with Deutsche Telekom and Cardano , we address the need for high-frequency, trusted transactions in telecom and the AI space.
Supporting links
Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?
No
Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'
No Dependencies
Will your project's outputs be fully open source?
Yes
Please provide details on the intellectual property (IP) status of your project outputs, including whether they will be released as open source or retained under another licence.
Apache License 2.0
Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal
AI
Describe your established collaborations.
PolyCrypt is a deep-tech spin-out from TU Darmstadt, where its founders conducted research in cryptography and distributed systems. For several years, PolyCrypt has worked in the Cardano ecosystem, contributing scalable Layer-2 concepts and industry integrations.
PolyCrypt has a long-standing technical relationship with Deutsche Telekom, collaborating on decentralized technologies, agent-based architectures, and secure protocol design. Telekom supports the current proposal as a Tier-1 consortium partner and contributes in-kind resources, expertise, and validation environments.
In addition, PolyCrypt previously co-developed the Perun state-channel technology with Bosch, resulting in a published case study confirming the protocol’s industrial maturity. Although Bosch is not a partner in this proposal, this historic cooperation demonstrates PolyCrypt’s capability to execute enterprise-grade R&D with major global companies.
Describe funding commitments.
Deutsche Telekom AG contributes in-kind support only. This includes technical expertise on agentic AI, access to internal evaluation environments, participation in architecture and security reviews, and collaboration on proof-of-concept testing. Telekom does not provide direct financial funding; all contributions are non-monetary and resource-based.
PolyCrypt GmbH is responsible for delivering all funded work. The Catalyst budget covers engineering, integration, documentation, sandbox development, and community engagement. PolyCrypt brings several years of experience in Cardano R&D, its origins as a TU Darmstadt spin-out, and prior research collaboration with Bosch and academic partners.
It is not excluded that Deutsche Telekom or Bosch may provide financial support during the project execution, but no such commitments exist at this stage
Describe your key performance metrics.
To measure the technical, ecosystem, and enterprise impact of this project, we define a set of quantitative KPIs aligned with the milestones, Telekom requirements, and Cardano adoption goals. These KPIs track performance across agentic payments, Cardano-layer usage, developer engagement, and enterprise readiness
2.AI Agent Payment Capability
3.SDK & Developer Adoption
4.Sandbox Usage & Ecosystem Activation
5.Enterprise Validation (Deutsche Telekom)
6.Public Demonstrator KPIs
7.Cardano Ecosystem Impact
Projected post-launch Cardano settlement volume: ≥50,000 – 150,000 daily channel settlements within 24–36 months.
Cross-chain user onboarding: Demonstrated capability for non-Cardano ecosystems to settle via Perun
Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem
AI agents are rapidly evolving into autonomous consumers of compute, data, APIs, and digital services. Yet they still lack a reliable, programmable, and scalable economic settlement layer that would allow them to pay per API call, purchase compute or data resources, interact with each other and with enterprises, and execute secure microtransactions in real time.
Current payment rails—such as Web2 billing systems, batch invoicing processes, and traditional fintech APIs—were never designed for autonomous agent operations. They cannot provide real-time micro-payments, machine-to-machine settlements, verifiable auditability, cross-enterprise usage models, or high-frequency off-chain interactions backed by on-chain finality.
As a result, the emergence of autonomous AI services is slowed down, new business models remain inaccessible, and enterprises cannot safely integrate AI agents into production environments. At present, Cardano also lacks a dedicated infrastructure that would enable large enterprises such as Deutsche Telekom to participate in, or monetize, this new economy of autonomous AI agents.
We will deliver a secure, agnostic and scalable payment infrastructure for AI agents by integrating identity-verified Cardano addresses with Deutsche Telekom’s cloud environment and Perun’s off-chain payment channels, tentative product name: TelePay.
The solution focuses on enterprise enforcement, access control, and payment automation while relying on a separate Fund 14 project for identity verification and ZK-binding to Cardano.
🔹 1. Communication & Coordination Layer: AIxPayment Connector (AIP)
The AIxPayment Connector is a WebSocket-based real-time interface that coordinates interactions between AI agents, payment clients, and backend services. It provides a single, consistent entry point where agents can send requests, receive responses, and trigger payment workflows without dealing with low-level channel details.
This layer is the “nervous system” of the solution: it lets agent logic plug in cleanly while Cardano and Perun stay behind a stable, well-documented API.
🔹 2. Cardano Layer-2 Payment Engine (Perun State Channels)
On top of AIP, the solution integrates Perun-based state channels to enable high-frequency micropayments on Cardano and across different ecosystems. Agents can pay per API call, per time unit, or per data chunk.
This lets Cardano handle telecom- and AI-scale traffic without overloading L1, while still guaranteeing economic finality and dispute resolution. It further allows users from other ecosystems to onboard to Cardano using the cross-chain feature.
🔹 3. Unified Developer SDK (Channels + Cloud Services + Identity)
To avoid forcing developers to manually orchestrate channels, messaging, and identity, TelePay AI provides a unified SDK. It wraps the AIP, the Perun payment client, and identity-bound Cardano addresses into a coherent developer experience.
This SDK is what turns the project from “just a demo” into a reusable building block for other Cardano-based agentic payment use cases.
🔹 4. Identity Layer & Enterprise Enforcement (Fund 14 Identity + Telekom Policies)
TelePay AI does not reinvent identity; it consumes the EUDI + ZK identity layer already funded in Fund 14 and focuses on how to use those identities in a payment and access-control context.
In other words: Cardano holds the cryptographic trust anchor; this project makes that anchor actually do work in concrete payment and access-control flows.
🔹 5. Developer Sandbox & Ecosystem Onboarding
To make the system approachable, TelePay AI provides a sandbox that mirrors the real architecture but with safe test settings. Developers can run example agents, experiment with micropayment flows, and see identity-bound payments end-to-end.
This lowers the barrier to entry for Cardano developers and for enterprise teams at Telekom or elsewhere who want to explore agentic payments before committing to production.
🔹 6. Marketplace-Ready Packaging (for Telekom Cloud & Future Agent Marketplaces)
The solution is designed for direct B2B deployment on Deutsche Telekom Cloud.
Enterprises can spin up their own instance — via a web interface — configure their gateway and API endpoints, attach identity and payment options, and immediately offer pay-per-use services backed by Cardano settlement.
This extends the system far beyond AI, turning Cardano and Perun into a general-purpose billing infrastructure for digital services, compute, data streams, and telecom workloads.
Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community
The integration of Perun with Cardano, validated by Deutsche Telekom as Tier-1 partner, introduces a scalable and production-ready payment and state-channel layer into the ecosystem. This unlocks concrete enterprise and developer use cases—ranging from telecom network automation to AI agent payments and IoT microservices. The impact is both immediate and durable: developers gain a powerful new SDK, enterprises gain a trusted integration path, and Cardano gains real-world adoption potential. PolyCrypt’s proven research background (TU Darmstadt), long-term industry collaborations, and established Cardano experience provide strong assurance of delivery, including consistent reporting and transparent communication with the community.
What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?
PolyCrypt GmbH is a deep-tech spin-off from the Technical University of Darmstadt, emerging from one of Europe’s leading applied cryptography research groups. Our team includes senior cryptographers, software engineers, and researchers with extensive experience in secure distributed systems, Layer-2 scaling, and decentralized identity solutions.
We have a strong and verifiable delivery record: PolyCrypt has successfully completed two previous Cardano Catalyst projects—“Perun Channels for Cardano” (F8) and “Easily Recoverable Identity Wallets for Atala PRISM” (F11). These projects strengthened our expertise in Cardano-native protocol integration, cryptographic key-management, and identity-focused infrastructures. All past deliverables were submitted on time, with transparent reporting and active community engagement.
Our capability extends beyond academic and Catalyst projects:
PolyCrypt has collaborated for several years with Deutsche Telekom and Bosch on advanced cryptographic protocols, agentic systems, secure communication technologies, and state-channel research. Through this long-standing collaboration, we have developed a shared understanding of technical requirements, security expectations, and enterprise-grade validation methodologies.
We will validate feasibility through a combination of technical milestones, Telekom-led evaluations, and transparent community reporting. Each Core Milestone includes a working deliverable—Cardano adapter, SDK, MVP, Telekom agentic AI prototype, and sandbox—allowing continuous verification of progress.
Deutsche Telekom will contribute architectural input, agentic AI expertise, and guidance on telecom-aligned use cases to help ensure practical relevance.
PolyCrypt will benchmark channel performance, confirm interoperability with Cardano, and open selected components for community testing.
Progress will be shared through regular Catalyst reports, demo sessions, and GitHub visibility, ensuring accountability and verifiable execution at every stage.
Milestone Title
AIxPayment Gateway (AIP
Milestone Outputs
A WebSocket-based message broker API that enables real-time, bidirectional communication by routing and processing messages between clients
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
3
Cost
210000
Progress
30 %
Milestone Title
Cardano Payment Client Integration into AIP
Milestone Outputs
Cardano Payment Clients from MS1 successfully connect to the AIP and execute off-chain payments using Payment Smart Contracts on the Cardano blockchain. These payments are secured through the Perun Layer 2 Payment Channel protocol, enabling fast, scalable, and zero-cost transactions.
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
5
Cost
210000
Progress
60 %
Milestone Title
AI Agent integration into AIP
Milestone Outputs
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
6
Cost
70000
Progress
70 %
Milestone Title
Identity Layer Integration & Developer SDK
Milestone Outputs
Unified TelePay AI SDK v1.0, combining AIP Gateway ,Perun payment client ,Identity-bound Cardano accounts, Optional Telekom Cloud endpoints
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
8
Cost
140000
Progress
90 %
Milestone Title
Full Agentic Billing & Authentication Demonstrator + Sandbox Environment
Milestone Outputs
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
9
Cost
70000
Progress
100 %
Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources
Hourly Rate per role in ADA
Lead Developer: 217.9487179 ADA/hr
Core Developer: 141.025641 ADA/hr
Researcher: 256.4102564 ADA/hr
Project Manager: 179.4871795 ADA/hr
Total budget = 700,000 ADA
Milestone weightings:
MS1 = 30% → 210,000 ADA
MS2 = 30% → 210,000 ADA
MS3 = 10% → 70,000 ADA
MS4 = 20% → 140,000 ADA
MS5 = 10% → 70,000 ADA
Breakdown per role and milestone
MS1 — AIxPayment Connector (AIP) — 210,000 ADA
Lead Developer:
Hours: 350
Cost: 350 × 217.9487179 = 76,282 ADA
Core Developers:
Hours: 650
Cost: 650 × 141.025641 = 91,666 ADA
Researcher:
Hours: 100
Cost: 100 × 256.4102564 = 25,641 ADA
Project Manager:
Hours: 90
Cost: 90 × 179.4871795 = 16,154 ADA
Total: ~210,000 ADA
MS2 — Cardano Payment Client Integration — 210,000 ADA
Lead Developer:
Hours: 300
Cost: 300 × 217.9487179 = 65,384 ADA
Core Developers:
Hours: 750
Cost: 750 × 141.025641 = 105,769 ADA
Researcher:
Hours: 70
Cost: 70 × 256.4102564 = 17,949 ADA
Project Manager:
Hours: 110
Cost: 110 × 179.4871795 = 19,743 ADA
Total: ~210,000 ADA
MS3 — AI-Agent Integration — 70,000 ADA
Lead Developer:
Hours: 80
Cost: 80 × 217.9487179 = 17,435 ADA
Core Developers:
Hours: 300
Cost: 300 × 141.025641 = 42,308 ADA
Researcher:
Hours: 20
Cost: 20 × 256.4102564 = 5,128 ADA
Project Manager:
Hours: 30
Cost: 30 × 179.4871795 = 5,384 ADA
Total: ~70,000 ADA
MS4 — SDK + Telekom Integration + Identity Layer — 140,000 ADA
Lead Developer:
Hours: 150
Cost: 150 × 217.9487179 = 32,692 ADA
Core Developers:
Hours: 550
Cost: 550 × 141.025641 = 77,564 ADA
Researcher:
Hours: 20
Cost: 20 × 256.4102564 = 5,128 ADA
Project Manager:
Hours: 75
Cost: 75 × 179.4871795 = 13,462 ADA
Total: ~140,000 ADA
MS5 — Demonstrator + Web Frontend — 70,000 ADA
Lead Developer:
Hours: 60
Cost: 60 × 217.9487179 = 13,077 ADA
Core Developers:
Hours: 300
Cost: 300 × 141.025641 = 42,308 ADA
Researcher:
Hours: 10
Cost: 10 × 256.4102564 = 2,564 ADA
Project Manager:
Hours: 70
Cost: 70 × 179.4871795 = 12,564 ADA
Total: ~70,000 ADA
How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?
This project delivers a high-impact, enterprise-backed Layer-2 micropayment and agent coordination framework for Cardano, validated together with Deutsche Telekom — Europe’s largest telecommunications provider. No equivalent Cardano-native solution currently exists that combines:
real-time micropayments for AI agents,
The requested 700,000 ADA is tightly aligned with engineering and infrastructure work across five milestones. Each milestone results in tangible, open-source or demonstrable components:
Every ADA directly funds development, testing, documentation, and deployment — not overhead, giveaways, or marketing.
The return to the Cardano ecosystem includes: a reusable micropayment framework (TelePay)
This proposal unlocks new markets for Cardano — AI agents, telecom, IoT, and pay-per-use cloud services — maximizing long-term ecosystem value.
I confirm that the lead applicant is a verified legal business entity.
Yes
I confirm that the lead org has a ≥2-year track record, and the consortium collectively has ≥$5M in verifiable annual revenue.
Yes
I confirm that evidence of collaboration with a qualified Tier-1 enterprise is provided.
Yes
I confirm that the proposer and all team members are in good standing with prior Catalyst projects.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal is for mature R&D or integration, not an early-stage concept or core infrastructure.
Yes
I confirm that evidence of a mature product is provided, with a clear integration plan if not already on Cardano.
Yes
I confirm that all key partners, including the Tier-1 collaborator, are clearly identified.
Yes
I confirm that a clear statement of the partner's in-kind or financial contributions is included.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal provides verifiable references (e.g., LinkedIn, portfolio) for key team members.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal includes clear KPIs for adoption (e.g., transaction volume, user growth). Forecast for projected on-chain transaction volume is provided with adequate justification.
Yes
I confirm that delivery is ≤ 12 months with clear milestones.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal includes a co-marketing or community engagement plan to amplify Cardano's visibility.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal budget is for future work only, not for completed tasks. No incentives, giveaways, private treasuries and regranting are included in the budget.
Yes
I Agree
Yes
The project team has successfully delivered several Catalyst projects in the past and brings all essential expertise for this proposal, including Layer-2 channel protocol design, Cardano EUTXO/Plutus integration, high-performance off-chain systems, interoperability engineering, secure agent-to-agent coordination, Telecom-grade security considerations, and reliable project execution
Hendrik Amler (Co-Founder, CEO)
Master’s degree in Computer Science focused on IT security. Leads project management and ecosystem outreach. Has worked on two previous successful Catalyst projects (State Channels, Threshold Cryptography).
Ilja von Hoessle (Dev Lead)
Holds a PhD in Physics, Technical Lead for Perun State Channel OSS project, experience in go, rust, python in 4+ different ecosystems. Designed and implemented interoperability layer between EVM and non-EVM (including EUTXO based) ecosystems including Lightning Network.
Huy Tran (Core developer)
Holds bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Core Developer. Has experience with EUTXO based ecosystems and Cardano Development. Has worked on a previous Catalyst project extending an existing library with Threshold Cryptography.
Steffen Rattay (Core developer): Core developer of the Perun Framework since its beginning in 2019. Skilled in a variety of programming languages including Go and Rust.
Sebastian Faust
Professor of Computer Science at Technical University of Darmstadt and research lead at PolyCrypt.
Jan Bormet (Researcher)
PhD Student and researcher. Experience with Cardano development (Cardano Plutus/EUTXO contract development) for State Channels. Experience in protocol development, formal verification and assessing security.
Sasan Safai (Business Dev&PM)
Connects PolyCrypt’s engineering team with Deutsche Telekom’s business and technical stakeholders, (see LOI) to ensure smooth collaboration across the consortium.
All required skills for Project are already present in the team.