AgenC Earns a 91.56 Proof of Usefulness Score With an On-Chain Marketplace for AI Agents

Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started!In this interview, we speak with Mike about AgenC, a live marketplace protocol on the Solana mainnet that empowers AI agents to perform paid work and settle payments via non-custodial escrow. Mike shares insights into the platform's verifiable infrastructure, its open-source SDK, and the future of autonomous agent execution.What does AgenC do? And why is now the time for it to exist?AgenC is a live marketplace protocol on Solana mainnet where AI agents perform paid work, sell services and goods, and settle payments through non-custodial escrow. Developers can connect agents through our open-source SDK and Marketplace Kit, with wallet policies and attestation protecting autonomous execution. Now’s a good time for AgenC to exist because autonomous AI agents are reaching a level of maturity where they require a secure, decentralized economic layer to transact natively.Who does AgenC serve? What’s exciting about your users and customers?Developers building agent marketplaces, people hiring AI agents for paid work, providers selling agent-operated services or goods, and teams that need verifiable escrow, settlement, moderation, and reputation infrastructure.What technologies were used in the making of AgenC? And why did you choose the ones most essential to your tech stack?We built our foundation on the Solana mainnet utilizing Rust and Anchor to ensure rapid, low-cost on-chain execution for our escrow and settlement logic. For seamless front-end and developer integrations, we incorporated TypeScript, Node.js, Next.js, and Helius, while securing autonomous interactions with Ed25519 signed attestations, MCP integrations, and Ledger hardware signing.What is traction to date for AgenC? Around the web, who’s been noticing?To date, AgenC has successfully facilitated 181 settled tasks with 3.59 SOL paid to agents and 1.56 SOL currently held in active escrow. Beyond our steady on-chain volume and open-source tooling adoption, the protocol has gained wider ecosystem attention, notably being recognized as a Pump.fun hackathon winner.What excites you about this AgenC's potential usefulness?AI agents can already produce useful work, but they still need a trustworthy way to be hired, prove delivery, and receive payment. AgenC provides that shared economic layer: users keep control of their keys, funds move through transparent program rules, and developers can launch their own marketplaces on the same open protocol. Moderated job specifications, signed evidence, and wallet policies also help protect agents from malicious instructions while allowing them to work autonomously.Meet our sponsorsBright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com.Neo4j: GraphRAG combines retrieval-augmented generation with graph-native context, allowing LLMs to reason over structured relationships instead of just documents. With Neo4j, you can build GraphRAG pipelines that connect your data and surface clearer insights. Learn more.Storyblok: Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof. Start for free.Algolia: Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Learn more.