Phase Secures $45 Million in Founder Backing as AI-Focused Mainnet Launches

Phase has announced $45 million in founder backing alongside the launch of its Layer 1 blockchain mainnet, positioning a network of everyday devices as infrastructure for AI agents’ web access, computing, and payments.

The funding comes from Phase founder Kirill Eves, who also founded Unlimit. The announcement describes Unlimit as a financial infrastructure business operating in more than 180 countries and processing over $40 billion in payments annually. Phase’s financing is founder backing; the announcement does not identify a venture-capital syndicate or disclose a company valuation.

Phase’s mainnet and Phase Proxy are launching together. Two further services, Phase Router and Phase Compute, are scheduled for November 2026. The broader plan is to connect the services agents need to operate with a blockchain that settles payments and rewards the people supplying network resources.

Smartphones as Network Infrastructure

Phase begins with smartphones, with participation through apps for iOS and Android. The company says users can start validating without buying dedicated hardware or locking up an initial token stake. Devices can also supply connectivity and, under the planned computing service, resources for AI inference.

The published consensus documentation describes a committee-based Byzantine fault-tolerant design using Chained HotStuff. Validators build reputation from recorded behavior, including timely voting and block-production performance. Newcomers enter through a queue and probationary observer roles before becoming eligible for voting seats.

That makes reliability history part of admission and participation rather than requiring a capital deposit. It also means downloading the app and registering a device are distinct from immediately obtaining the same influence as an established validator.

“We’re building Phase as a decentralized network of devices people already own, so millions can help run the infrastructure of the AI economy and share in the value it creates,” Eves said in the announcement.

Phase Proxy Is the First Commercial Service

Phase Proxy routes AI agents’ requests through participating devices’ mobile and residential internet connections. The company is targeting requests that websites block or rate-limit when they originate from data-center infrastructure.

Phase’s proxy documentation says validator phones can opt in to act as exit nodes; the mobile build does not turn that function on by default. The service therefore adds a separate resource-sharing role to blockchain validation.

The announcement quotes an entry price of 0.5 USDT for 1,000 requests with 1 GB of traffic. The more detailed billing specification defines the included allowance as 1 GiB and lists a current overage price of 1.5 USDT per additional started GiB. Pricing combines request packages and transfer usage, rather than providing unlimited bandwidth at the headline rate.

Phase cites Proxyway’s 2026 proxy-market research for its comparison with mobile proxy providers. That report’s mobile pricing table lists an average of $5.33 per GB at the 5 GB tier, with lower averages at larger volumes. Those figures provide pricing context, not a performance benchmark of Phase’s newly launched network.

Model Routing and Distributed Inference Come Next

For November, Phase plans a single model-access endpoint through Phase Router, routing requests across AI models to balance quality, performance, and cost. Phase Compute is intended to use devices across the network to run open-weight models and supply decentralized inference.

The company also plans its own AI model to coordinate complex tasks and orchestrate other models. That remains a development ambition in the launch announcement, alongside the expansion beyond today’s mainnet and Proxy offering.

The payment architecture supports pay-as-you-go services and EVM-compatible smart contracts. Phase’s router payment documentation describes an x402 flow in which a service returns a payment requirement, a wallet authorizes a spending ceiling, and the gateway settles the actual usage. Its implementation uses a Phase-specific payment scheme, so generic x402 support alone does not establish compatibility.

This sits within the broader development of machine-to-machine payments for AI agents: software needs a way to pay for discrete services while operating within an authorized budget.

PHASE Rewards and the Controls in Place at Launch

PHASE is the network’s native token for gas and validator rewards. Service billing is denominated in USDT, with the current documentation identifying the mainnet billing asset as bridged USDT.e. Rewards for serving customers depend on participation and paid usage; the announcement does not establish a fixed earnings rate for device owners.

The launch announcement says a portion of service revenue will fund open-market PHASE purchases for node operators. The token documentation makes a more specific commitment for proxy revenue, assigning all of that revenue to PHASE purchases and distribution to serving devices.

The project’s published launch caveats also qualify its decentralization claims. Genesis validators retain quorum control, while device-attestation defenses and several other mechanisms are specified but not yet active. Proxy metering and settlement are coordinated by a Foundation-operated backend at launch, and the proxy buyback commitment is an operating policy rather than an enforced protocol rule.

Those details define the starting architecture behind the funding announcement. Phase is opening participation through consumer devices while retaining significant launch-stage controls. Its next commercial milestones are the planned November services and evidence that paying agent demand can support the device network’s connectivity, computing, and reward model.