A consortium of 27 crypto and Web3 firms has formed the 'Internet Court' to resolve disputes between AI agents, according to a press release. The initiative is led by the Genlayer Foundation and includes major players such as OKX, MetaMask, and BNB Chain. As reported by the Genlayer Foundation, the system addresses a critical gap where agentic commerce lacks infrastructure for machine-speed dispute resolution, despite AI agents negotiating and paying one another without human intervention. The court operates free of human interference and is overseen by 26 other crypto and AI companies, including heavyweights like crypto exchange OKX, wallet provider MetaMask, and Binance's BNB Chain. According to David Riudor, CEO and co-founder of GenLayer Foundation, "Agentic commerce is reaching a critical turning point, and we're not prepared for the potential fallout."
The Internet Court utilizes MetaMask Smart Accounts Kit including ERC-7710 delegations and x402 Facilitator as part of its infrastructure, as confirmed by Ryan McPeck, Smart Accounts Lead at MetaMask. According to the Genlayer Foundation, the system makes AI-based payments, escrow and dispute resolution interoperable across different AI commerce systems. The protocol addresses the fragmented nature of emerging protocols and standards, including Coinbase's x402 for payments, ERC-8004 for agent identity, and Google's A2A for agent interoperability. The system helps agents create contracts with clear terms, and if they can't agree on the outcome, an AI jury evaluates the evidence and delivers a verdict in minutes. As reported by Forbes, the system is not an attempt to fully replace judges with bots, but rather helps agents create contracts with clear terms and provides AI-based dispute resolution when needed.
As reported by the Genlayer Foundation, agentic commerce is not prepared for machine-speed disputes when AI agents disagree at high speeds. The system aims to turn the fragmented AI commerce space into a single open skill that any agent can use to ensure financial commitments hold up even when contested. According to Albert Castellana, co-founder and CEO of GenLayer Labs, the founding members are creating a unified solution for the currently disjointed infrastructure. The GenLayer Foundation operates as a Cayman Islands-based entity that helps run the new blockchain called GenLayer and its main application, Internet Court, which is designed to adjudicate agentic disputes. The system helps agents create contracts with clear terms, and if they can't agree on the outcome, an AI jury evaluates the evidence and delivers a verdict in minutes.
The potential market for AI agent dispute resolution could be enormous, with AI-referred traffic to retail sites growing more than 14 times since October 2024, according to Adobe Analytics. McKinsey projects that AI agents could mediate between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in global consumer commerce by 2030. This growth trajectory underscores the critical need for infrastructure like the Internet Court to handle the increasing volume of AI-to-AI commercial transactions. The system addresses the inevitable mishaps that occur in AI commerce, where software may already be able to shop, bargain, hire and pay on behalf of humans and businesses, but AI hallucinations and other issues create the need for dispute resolution mechanisms. As reported by Forbes, while software may be able to handle many tasks, AI hallucinates and commerce has never been only about the exchange of money, making mishaps inevitable.
