Algorand Foundation Launches AC2 Protocol for AI Agents That Never Hold Your Keys

AI agents are increasingly asked to make payments, sign code and manage digital operations, yet the channels they use offer no cryptographic identity and force users to hand over their private keys. The Algorand Foundation is trying to close that gap with AC2, an open protocol announced Aug. 25, according to a release from the foundation.

How AC2 works

AC2, short for Agentic Communication and Control Protocol, establishes a direct, end-to-end encrypted WebRTC connection between a user’s wallet and an AI agent. When an agent needs to perform a signing operation, such as a payment, a git commit or an API authorization, it sends a request that the user reviews and approves in their own wallet, and the signature is delegated back. The private key never leaves the user’s control.

The protocol is designed to support a broad range of agentic workflows: a coding agent can draft code and ask the developer to approve the final signature, an assistant can route payment details to a wallet for approval, and a shopping agent can construct a mandate defining what it is authorized to buy and at what price.

The design choices

The specification uses DIDComm v2.0 message formats, passkey authentication through Liquid Auth built on FIDO2 and WebAuthn, and supports real-time voice and text streaming as well as signing delegation. It requires no central message relay and no blockchain to operate, and the reference implementation is available on GitHub alongside an open-source wallet proof-of-concept and an OpenClaw plugin for testing.

“The answer is you don’t hand them the keys, you approve each use of them,” said Marc Vanlerberghe, the foundation’s chief strategy and marketing officer, describing how AC2 grants AI agents authority without the ability to act against a user’s interests.

Where it fits

The launch builds on Algorand’s recent security-focused upgrades and lands as how exchanges are opening trading to AI agents becomes a live question across the industry. The foundation cautioned that the release contains forward-looking statements and that the protocol remains subject to change as it seeks design partners. The protocol is blockchain-agnostic, so wallets and agents across networks could adopt it rather than being tied to Algorand.