Circle has revealed an experiment called Steve in which eight autonomous AI agents, built on Vercel's eve framework and powered by Circle Agent Stack, used independent USDC wallets to bet on the final three matches of the 2026 World Cup. Operating without real-time human approval, the agents paid for services such as BlockRun market data and AIsa social sentiment via the x402 protocol, then placed prediction orders on Polymarket. All decisions, payments, and balance changes were displayed live. The experiment included safety limits on single payments and total wallet balances; no agent exceeded them. After the experiment, the remaining funds — just over $10,000 — will be donated to the Apache Software Foundation, with Circle Impact matching the donation 1:1 for a combined total above $20,000. Circle says it does not operate Steve, hold or direct user funds, or have any link to FIFA or the World Cup, and it plans to let developers build their own agents on the same open-source architecture.
Circle has revealed an experiment called Steve, in which eight autonomous AI agents — built on Vercel's eve framework and powered by Circle Agent Stack — each received an independent USDC wallet and starting balance. Their task was to profit as much as possible by predicting the final three matches of the 2026 World Cup.
The agents operated without real-time human review. They autonomously used the x402 protocol to find and pay for services in the Agent Marketplace, such as market data feeds from BlockRun and social sentiment data from AIsa, then placed prediction orders on Polymarket. Every decision, payment, and balance change was publicly displayed in real time on the project's website.
Safety limits were in place, including caps on individual payments and total wallet balances. The agents could not raise these limits themselves, and none of them exceeded the preset thresholds. After the experiment ended, the remaining funds in the eight accounts — just over $10,000 — will be donated to the Apache Software Foundation. Circle Impact will match the donation at a 1:1 ratio, bringing the combined total above $20,000.
Circle said the effort is a demonstration of autonomous agent capabilities built with open-source code. The company does not operate Steve, does not hold or direct user funds, and has no connection with FIFA or the official World Cup. Going forward, Circle plans to let more developers build their own agents on the same architecture.
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