The GOAT May Newsletter - Builder Activation Accelerates

Q1 was about shipping the foundations: Bitcoin-secured infrastructure, GOAT x402, ERC-8004, AgentKit, ClawUp, and laying out the broader thesis for an agent-native digital economy.

Q2 is about turning GOAT Network’s agent infrastructure into active builder momentum - an effort that accelerated sharply in May.

Across the month, we launched the GOAT AI Builder Grants Program, expanded AgentKit, introduced readable .goat names through GNS, brought new payment use cases closer to production, supported builder workshops across Asia and North America, and ended the month with OpenClaw Hack Toronto setting new single-day records for ClawUp and GOAT Network agent activity.

The result is the beginning of a more visible builder pipeline around Bitcoin-secured agents, agentic payments, and economically capable autonomous systems on GOAT Network.

Q2 Focus: Builder Activation

To kick off the month, we launched the GOAT AI Builder Grants Program, making up to $1M available for teams building real agent-based products on GOAT Network.

The program is designed for builders working on AI agents that can transact, provide services, coordinate with other agents, access onchain identity, use programmable payments, and operate inside a Bitcoin-secured economy. It is not just a general ecosystem incentive program. It is aimed at moving teams from experimentation into deployable agent products.

Read more: https://www.goat.network/news/goat-ai-builder-grants-program

This has shaped the direction of Q2 so far, with the priority being to help activate the builders creating the new agent-based economy. That means giving them the primitives, tools, examples, and support needed to take a standard AI agent and make it economically capable.

OpenClaw Hack Toronto Sets New Records

May witnessed our biggest builder activation to date: OpenClaw Hack Toronto.

Held during Toronto Tech Week, the event brought builders together to deploy working economic agents on mainnet using OpenClaw, ClawUp, AgentKit, x402, ERC-8004, and GOAT Network.

By the end of the event, new single-day records were set across ClawUp and GOAT Network activity:

• 230+ new ClawUp registrations

• 130 agents created

• 74 agents registered on GOAT Network under ERC-8004 (see 8004Registry)

Read more: https://www.goat.network/news/openclaw-hack-toronto-sets-new-high-for-agentkit-clawup-activity

The event was supported by the MindFuel grant program, ClawUp, TMU BYTE Club, CryptoChicks, and Metis Foundation.

Despite operational challenges, including power outages and a venue change, builders continued shipping. That made the event more useful as a signal. The stack was tested in a real environment, with real users, under imperfect conditions, and still produced the strongest single-day activation numbers so far.

For us, this event represents the core of Q2: builder activation that produces measurable onchain and product activity.

From Standard Agents to Economic Agents

Shortly after our Grants Program release, we published a practical primer on how to take a standard AI agent and turn it into an economic agent.

Most agents today can reason, retrieve information, generate outputs, and automate workflows. But they usually cannot participate in economic activity on their own. They cannot reliably pay for services, receive payments, build reputation, prove identity, or interact with other agents in a verifiable environment.

The article explains how GOAT x402, ERC-8004, AgentKit, and Bitcoin-secured settlement work together to give agents the capabilities required to move from passive software to active economic participants.

Read here: https://www.goat.network/news/from-standard-agent-to-economic-agent

This framing became one of the clearest themes throughout our content in May: agents are beginning to become users, service providers, payers, sellers, and participants in open digital markets.

Defining Bitcoin-Secured Agents

Our initial primer was followed by a deeper thesis on Bitcoin-secured agents.

The piece defines a Bitcoin-secured agent as an autonomous agent that can hold identity, make payments, access services, and participate in economic activity through permissionless infrastructure - ultimately secured by Bitcoin.

It argues that agents will need neutral payment rails, verifiable identity, persistent reputation, programmable access, and settlement guarantees that do not depend entirely on private platforms or custodial systems.

Read more: https://www.goat.network/news/bitcoin-secured-agents

This is the larger direction behind GOAT Network’s builder push. Our ultimate goal is to support agents as economic actors inside a Bitcoin-secured digital economy.

AgentKit 0.2.1: More Actions for AI Agents

On the tech side, AgentKit 0.2.1 was released mid-month adding 23 new actions for AI agents.

AgentKit is the developer surface for the GOAT Network agent stack. It gives builders access to the actions agents need in order to operate across payments, wallets, identity, onchain interactions, and broader economic workflows.

The 0.2.1 release expands what builders can connect agents to and increases the range of tasks agents can perform through the GOAT stack.

GOAT Network CEO Kevin Liu (@kevinliu) explained in a video why AgentKit and Bitcoin-secured rails matter: https://x.com/GOATNetwork/status/2059538564778426564?s=20

GNS Is Live: Readable .goat Names

We also launched GNS, the .goat name service for the GOAT Network ecosystem.

Supported by GOAT x402, GNS replaces complex wallet addresses with readable .goat names, making onchain interactions easier for users, builders, projects, and agents.

Read more: https://www.goat.network/news/gns-is-live-readable-.goat-names-for-the-goat-network-ecosystem

Readable names reduce friction. They make transactions easier to understand. They also help agents operate in environments where addresses, records, and counterparties need to be interpreted by both humans and software.

Snaplii Gift Cards Are Coming to GOAT Network

We also announced another upcoming x402 use case coming to GOAT Network: a new gift card platform using the Snaplii api.

Soon, users will be able to buy gift cards across the US and Canada using USDT or USDC across GOAT Network, Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, and more.

The integration is powered by GOAT x402, with Snaplii AI agent skills and no extra service fees.

This is one of the clearest examples of GOAT x402 moving from protocol infrastructure into a practical consumer-facing payment use case. Gift cards are a strong early category because they connect crypto payments to products people already understand: food, shopping, transport, entertainment, and everyday spending.

GOAT Network CEO Kevin Liu (@kevinliu) also demoed a new x402 use case at the IEEE conference during Toronto Tech Week, noting that feedback was especially positive from teams who had mostly seen prototypes rather than mainnet products running in production environments.

ClawUp, Workshops, and Live Agent Building

May also saw continued activation around ClawUp, the agent creation and management platform built on GOAT Network infrastructure.

We released a ClawUp demo video showing how users can create and manage agents more easily: https://x.com/GOATNetwork/status/2052736479345123563?s=20

GOAT Network engineers were also active on the ground in Asia, helping builders deploy autonomous agents live with ClawUp, GOAT x402, ERC-8004, AgentKit, and the GOAT Network stack.

In Ho Chi Minh City, GOAT engineers supported builders directly as they worked with autonomous agent infrastructure.

This was followed by a successful ClawUp workshop in Hanoi, where GOAT engineers delivered first-hand agent-building support and helped builders deploy agents with ClawUp and AgentKit. Over 150 new agents were created.

ClawUp also reached 1,000 users in May, showing early traction around simpler agent creation and management.

GOAT User Journey Season 2 Comes to an End

The GOAT User Journey Season 2 also came to an end in May, marking another important step in community activation.

This section of the campaign brought users into a more practical, hands-on experience with AI agents, ClawUp, AgentKit, x402, ERC-8004, and the wider GOAT agent ecosystem.

Across four stages, users created agents on ClawUp, joined workshops and quizzes, completed missions, explored the GOAT agent stack, and showcased how their agents grew through the season.

By the end of the campaign, Season 2 recorded 1,000+ participation actions across referrals, workshop activity, quiz sessions, Discord submissions, content entries, agent missions, and social posts across X, YouTube, Telegram, CoinMarketCap, Binance Square, and Discord.

Season 3 is coming soon, with an even more expanded journey ahead.

Other Notable Mentions

Ormi Partnership

GOAT Network partnered with Ormi Labs to advance x402 infrastructure and help enable the next wave of agentic payments.

Together, GOAT Network and Ormi will work on rails for a future where agents can transact more seamlessly across the web.

Hermes Bridge Routes Go Live

Hermes went live in the GOAT Network ecosystem.

Bridge routes are now available for BTCB, DOGEB, and enzoBTC between BNB Chain, Ethereum, and GOAT Network Mainnet.

Hermes adds more liquidity pathways into the GOAT ecosystem, improving asset movement for users and builders building Bitcoin-secured applications.

Thought Leadership on Agent Revenue

GOAT Network’s Ben Wynn (@0x1164) published several relevant pieces on agent monetisation and product strategy, including:

Where Will People Actually Make Money With Agents?: https://x.com/0x1164/status/2054581138455212190?s=20

Building Agents That Earn: A Best-Practices Guide for 2026: https://x.com/0x1164/status/2056851829175070771?s=20

Both pieces support the same practical direction as GOAT’s builder activation push: the goal is not just to create more agents, but to help builders create agents that can enter real workflows and start earning real revenue.

AEF Seoul 2026

GOAT Network sponsored AEF Seoul 2026, hosted by Quack AI and Hyblock at HASHED Lounge on May 27th.

The event gathered builders, researchers, and protocol teams around settlement, verification, and agent-native infrastructure.

Bitcoin Adoption Watch

We recently launched Bitcoin Adoption Watch, a new initiative tracking Bitcoin adoption across institutions, governments, regulation, public markets, corporate treasuries, and other major developments.

See the first segment: https://x.com/GOATNetwork/status/2059729445078933641?s=20

Follow @GOATNetwork on X for updates.

Looking Ahead

The GOAT Network team is immensely proud that the foundations we have spent many years building are now ready and being used by people all around the globe.

Builders are creating agents with ClawUp and AgentKit. Agents are being registered onchain through ERC-8004. GOAT x402 is enabling real-world payment use cases. GNS is making the ecosystem easier to use. New bridge routes are improving liquidity access. The grants program is giving teams a clearer path to build real agent-based products.

The next phase is about compounding this activity.

More builders. More agents. More payment flows. More identity usage. More products that make the agent economy concrete.

Let’s continue to build the new digital economy together.

The GOAT Network team.