Pharos Network, a financial Layer 1 blockchain, introduced an Agent Native upgrade at Korea Blockchain Week. The Testnet release adds Sponsored Transactions, which let applications or approved sponsors pay gas while preserving the original sender.
The Brief
- Pharos says the rollout starts today and runs through Q4, covering a Testnet upgrade, a widget, a developer portal and AnvitaMate.
- The Pharos Port Agent Widget, starting with Harbor, lets users ask about real-world asset positions, vault maturity, yield and redemption windows.
- The roadmap puts PoS staking and Testnet gas sponsorship in Q4 2026, with Agent Accounts to follow in 2027.
- AnvitaMate x Pharos, from Anvita Flow, packages the same tools into a local AI environment so builders stay in their own workspace.
Pharos pitches agents as onchain economic actors
Pharos says AI agents have moved quickly from concept to product offchain over the past two years. Their onchain presence has largely remained limited, the company said, by gaps in reusable Skill assets, reliable payment capabilities and agent-to-agent collaboration.
Pharos wants agents to act as native onchain economic actors. In its framing, an agent holds assets, calls tools, coordinates with other agents and pays for its own actions. The company ties that goal to RealFi, its term for making real-world value usable onchain. The upgrade ships with a brand refresh built on the mission “Put Real-World Value to Work.“
Sponsored Transactions are the specific protocol capability in this Testnet upgrade. Gas is a cost every onchain actor pays, and sponsorship lets an application or approved sponsor pay it instead. That could let an agent transact without first holding a balance to cover gas. The announcement does not say who approves sponsors or what limits, if any, sponsors can set.
For users, Pharos describes a shift toward intent-based interaction through the Pharos Port Agent Widget. People state what they want to do instead of stepping through every application manually. The agent interprets the request and prepares the corresponding action, while the user keeps control of all of it.
For developers, the new ai.pharos.xyz portal brings Pharos Chain MCP, Developer Docs MCP and the official SkillEngine into a single entry point. AnvitaMate x Pharos comes from AI agent infrastructure provider Anvita Flow. It packages the same capabilities into a local AI environment, so developers can build on Pharos without leaving their own workspace.
Pharos launched its Mainnet, Pacific Ocean, in April 2026, but the announcement sets no Mainnet date for Sponsored Transactions. The network builds its ecosystem through the RealFi Alliance with partners including Circle, Chainlink, Anchorage Digital, Centrifuge and Morpho. A $10 million builder incubator backs early teams working on RealFi and AI.
Agent Accounts are still on the 2027 list
Wish Wu, co-founder and CEO of Pharos Network, put the release in terms of what agents need to operate. Wu said: “We are not adding an AI feature to the application layer.” He added that Pharos is giving agents, which he called a new class of economic actors, accounts, authorization and payments.
Sponsored Transactions cover the payments item, since they decide who pays gas. On the payment side, Pharos also lists native support for the x402 protocol. The account layer sits further out. The roadmap places Agent Accounts, Agent account transaction interfaces and State Economy in 2027, where they will progressively move into deployment.
Why It Matters?
Q4 2026 brings PoS staking, set to go live, and gas sponsorship, planned to enter the Testnet. That gas sponsorship item appears to overlap with Sponsored Transactions, which the announcement also describes as live on the Testnet. The announcement does not explain how the two differ.
The roadmap ends in 2028, when Pharos aims to support end-to-end Agent Native workflows that bring these capabilities into an integrated stack.
