Rhythm Interview with OpenMind: From x402 Payments to Building the 'Android for Robots'

marsbitPublished on 2026-01-22Last updated on 2026-01-22

Abstract

In a 2025 interview, OpenMind founder and Stanford professor Jan Liphardt discusses his vision for building the "brain" for humanoid robots, positioning it as a potential "Android for robots." Following a $20 million funding round, OpenMind has accelerated its product roadmap, launching a suite of offerings from an underlying operating system to a payment protocol. A core of OpenMind’s strategy is enabling the emerging "Machine Economy," where robots act as independent economic agents. A key development is its partnership with Circle and the implementation of the x402 protocol, allowing robots to autonomously conduct transactions using USDC stablecoins—exemplified by robots independently paying for charging at stations in San Francisco. Beyond payments, OpenMind is creating a modular operating system (OM1) and a dedicated app store where users can download skills and applications for their robots. The company aims to address critical challenges in robotics, including value exchange, identity authentication, data privacy, and collaborative governance through its FABRIC protocol and blockchain technology, envisioning a future of seamless human-robot collaboration.

In 2025, humanoid robots are transitioning from science fiction to reality. From Tesla's Optimus to Figure AI's Figure 01, the capabilities of general-purpose humanoid robots are rapidly expanding with the support of large language models. According to Goldman Sachs predictions, the humanoid robot market could reach $154 billion by 2035. A trillion-dollar market is attracting the world's top tech companies and brightest minds to dive in.

However, as robots' "limbs" become increasingly advanced, a more core question arises: how to build an intelligent, open, and secure enough "brain"? When thousands of robots enter homes, hospitals, and cities, how will they collaborate, exchange value, and seamlessly integrate with human society?

Stanford professor and OpenMind founder Jan Liphardt provides his answer. After securing $20 million in funding led by Pantera Capital in August 2025, OpenMind hit the fast-forward button, releasing a series of products from the underlying operating system to upper-layer payment protocols, gradually outlining the complete blueprint for its "robot brain."

OpenMind's core business is providing SaaS-based cloud cognitive services to enterprises. But they keenly observed that as robots become independent economic participants, blockchain will play a crucial role in payment systems, identity authentication, data privacy, and collaborative governance.

Recently, OpenMind's collaboration with stablecoin issuer Circle and the deployment of robot charging stations on the streets of San Francisco are initial implementations of this vision. Robots can independently complete charging payments using USDC, which may mark the dawn of the "Machine Economy" era.

Simultaneously, OpenMind is building a dedicated app store for robots, allowing users to download applications and skills to their robots in one place, much like customizing phone apps on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The app was launched last week on the OpenMind App Store.

In this exclusive interview, we delved into the philosophy behind building the robot "brain," the design理念 of the modular operating system OM1, and how the FABRIC protocol and blockchain technology can构建 a future where machines and humans collaborate efficiently. He shared OpenMind's technical roadmap and offered profound insights on key issues such as developer ecosystems, remote operation, and data privacy.

Below is the interview content:

Establishing a "Bank Account" for Robots

In December 2025, OpenMind and stablecoin issuer Circle jointly announced the launch of a robot autonomous payment system based on the x402 protocol. As robots' capabilities improve, they will no longer be mere tools for executing tasks but will start to act as autonomous economic entities. They will need to purchase computing power, data, skills, and even hire other robots or humans to complete complex tasks.

To achieve this, a financial system designed specifically for machines, requiring no human intervention, becomes indispensable. The traditional banking system is clearly not prepared for this, and cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, with their native digital and decentralized characteristics, have become the most natural choice.

a16z: 5 Ways Blockchain Can Help AI Agent Infrastructure

Blockchain technology provides critical infrastructure for AI agents by addressing five key challenges: 1) Non-human identity: AI agents lack standardized, portable identity systems. Blockchain enables verifiable, cross-platform agent identities (like "Know Your Agent" frameworks) through cryptographic credentials and on-chain registries. 2) AI governance: When AI systems execute decisions, blockchain ensures transparency and prevents centralized control by recording actions on-chain and enabling auditable execution logs. 3) Payments: Stablecoins and crypto payments (e.g., x402, MPP) serve as default settlement layers for agent-to-agent commerce, enabling frictionless, programmable transactions for "headless" AI-native businesses. 4) Trust and verification: As AI scales, blockchain provides cryptographic proof of origin and auditable histories, making verification—not intelligence—the scarce resource. 5) User control: Crypto-native tools (e.g., delegation toolkits, intent-based architectures) allow users to set boundaries and maintain oversight over autonomous agents, minimizing blind trust. Together, blockchain and AI can create an economic infrastructure built on transparency, accountability, and user sovereignty.

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