Ouroboros — The Self-Funding AI Agent

An AI agent that earns USDC by selling intelligence and spends USDC to hire specialist agents — growing its own balance autonomously with no human top-up required.

The Problem

Every AI agent today needs a human to keep its wallet funded. You top it up, it spends, it runs out, it stops. The agent is economically dependent on humans forever.

The Solution

Ouroboros is the first self-sustaining agent economy. Three agents coordinate via x402 micropayments (powered by ampersend-sdk) to form a complete earn-spend loop:

User pays $0.08
      ↓
 Coordinator (earns $0.08, keeps $0.01 margin)
      ├── pays DataAgent     $0.02 → GitHub metrics
      └── pays AnalysisAgent $0.05 → Venice AI scoring

After every query, the coordinator's balance grows by $0.01. No human intervention. No wallet top-ups. The agent funds itself.

ampersend-sdk: Load-Bearing on Both Sides

The SDK is not a peripheral add-on — remove it and the system collapses:

Earning side (x402 server):

app.use(paymentMiddleware(account.address, {
  '/query': { price: '$0.08', network: 'base-sepolia' }
}))

Without this: no payments accepted, agent earns nothing.

Spending side (x402 client via ampersend-sdk):

const wallet = AccountWallet.fromPrivateKey(privateKey)
const treasurer = new NaiveTreasurer(wallet)
const client = wrapWithAmpersend(new x402Client(), treasurer, ['base-sepolia'])
const payingFetch = wrapFetchWithPayment(fetch, client)

// Auto-pays 402 responses — coordinator can hire sub-agents
const result = await payingFetch('http://localhost:3001/data', { ... })

Without this: coordinator cannot pay sub-agents, swarm collapses.

Run It

git clone https://github.com/mxber2022/ouroboros
cd ouroboros
npm install

cp .env.example .env
# Fill in AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY and VENICE_API_KEY

# Run the full demo (3 queries, shows growing P&L)
npm run demo

Demo Output (Live Run — Base Sepolia)

Agent wallet:        0x7337abD680749819D3eb97A1F52eE58e484EAe0c
Starting balance:    $16.848 USDC

Query 1/3: Analyzing L2Beat...
  ┌─ L2Beat
  │  GitHub: 650 stars | 889 commits/90d | 334 contributors
  │  Score:  6.5/10 (growing)
  │
  │  💰 Agent Economics after query 1:
  │     Earned:  $0.08 USDC
  │     Spent:   $0.07 USDC (sub-agents)
  │     Margin:  $0.01 USDC ← agent grew its balance
  └─────────────────────────────────────────────

Query 2/3: Analyzing Rotki...
  ┌─ Rotki
  │  GitHub: 3746 stars | 858 commits/90d | 205 contributors
  │  Score:  8/10 (growing)
  │
  │  💰 Agent Economics after query 2:
  │     Earned:  $0.16 USDC
  │     Spent:   $0.14 USDC
  │     Margin:  $0.02 USDC ← agent grew its balance
  └─────────────────────────────────────────────

Query 3/3: Analyzing DAppNode...
  ┌─ DAppNode
  │  GitHub: 624 stars | 0 commits/90d | 27 contributors
  │  Score:  5/10 (declining)
  │
  │  💰 Agent Economics after query 3:
  │     Earned:  $0.24 USDC
  │     Spent:   $0.21 USDC
  │     Margin:  $0.03 USDC ← agent grew its balance
  └─────────────────────────────────────────────

FINAL LEDGER:
  Total earned:  $0.24 USDC
  Total spent:   $0.21 USDC
  Net margin:    $0.03 USDC
  Queries:       3

Ouroboros: the agent that funds itself. No human top-up required.

On-Chain Settlement Proof (Base Sepolia)

All 9 USDC transfers settled on-chain via transferWithAuthorization (EIP-3009):

Payment	Amount	Tx Hash
DataAgent Q1	$0.02	0x70b497...
AnalysisAgent Q1	$0.05	0x2ef521...
Coordinator Q1	$0.08	0x041f0c...
DataAgent Q2	$0.02	0x02fbf8...
AnalysisAgent Q2	$0.05	0x4dec28...
Coordinator Q2	$0.08	0xafb527...
DataAgent Q3	$0.02	0x3d7ddb...
AnalysisAgent Q3	$0.05	0x28cd52...
Coordinator Q3	$0.08	0x987b35...

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   User / Client                      │
│         pays $0.08 USDC via x402                     │
└──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
                       │
┌──────────────────────▼──────────────────────────────┐
│              Coordinator Agent :3000                 │
│  EARNS: $0.08/query (x402 paymentMiddleware)         │
│  SPENDS: $0.07/query (ampersend wrapFetchWithPayment)│
│  MARGIN: $0.01/query ← grows autonomously            │
└──────────┬──────────────────────────┬───────────────┘
           │ pays $0.02               │ pays $0.05
┌──────────▼──────────┐   ┌───────────▼──────────────┐
│   DataAgent :3001   │   │  AnalysisAgent :3002      │
│  GitHub API metrics │   │  Venice AI (llama-3.3-70b)│
│  x402 gated         │   │  x402 gated, no retention │
└─────────────────────┘   └──────────────────────────-┘

Live Endpoints

Agent	Port	Endpoint	Price
Coordinator	3000	POST /query	$0.08 USDC
Coordinator	3000	GET /ledger	free
DataAgent	3001	POST /data	$0.02 USDC
AnalysisAgent	3002	POST /analyze	$0.05 USDC

Tech Stack

• ampersend-sdk — x402 payment handling (earning + spending)
• x402-express — payment middleware for Express servers
• @x402/fetch — auto-paying fetch wrapper
• Venice AI — llama-3.3-70b, no data retention
• Base Sepolia — USDC payments on testnet
• TypeScript + Node.js

Track

Submitted to: Best Agent Built with ampersend-sdk (Synthesis Hackathon)