Who truly controls your AI assistant? That’s a question most people haven’t asked yet. Today, millions rely on digital assistants, from voice-controlled devices to smart bots embedded in tools like Google Workspace or ChatGPT. These systems help us write, organize, search, and even think. However, the vast majority of them are rented. We don’t own the intelligence we depend on. That means someone else gets to control it.

If your digital assistant disappears tomorrow, can you do anything about it? What if the company behind it changes the terms, restricts functionality, or monetizes your data in ways you didn’t expect? These are not theoretical concerns. They’re already happening, and they point to a future we should actively shape.

David Minarsch is a speaker at Consensus 2025 in Toronto May 14-16.

As these agents become embedded in everything from our finances to our workflows and homes, the stakes around ownership become much higher. Renting is probably fine for low-stakes tasks, like a language model that helps you write emails. However, when your AI acts for you, makes decisions with your money, or manages critical parts of your life, ownership isn’t optional. It’s essential.

What Today’s AI Business Model Implies for Users

AI as we know it is built on a rental economy. You pay for access, monthly subscriptions, or pay-per-use APIs, and in exchange, you get the “illusion” of control. However, behind the scenes, platform providers hold all the power. They choose what AI model to serve, what your AI can do, how it responds, and whether you get to keep using it.

Let’s take a common example: a business team using an AI-powered assistant to automate tasks or generate insights. That assistant might live inside a centralized SaaS tool. It might be powered by a closed model hosted on someone else’s server — and running on their GPUs. It might even be trained on your company’s own data — data you no longer fully own once uploaded.

Now, imagine that the provider begins prioritizing monetization, like Google Search does with its advertising-driven results. Just as search results are heavily influenced by paid placements and commercial interests, the same will likely happen with large language models (LLMs). The assistant you relied on changes, skewing responses to benefit the provider’s business model, and there’s nothing you can do. You never had true control to begin with.

This isn’t just a business risk; it’s a personal one, too. In Italy, ChatGPT was temporarily banned in 2023 due to privacy concerns. That left thousands without access overnight. In a world where people are building increasingly personal workflows around AI, this weakness is unacceptable.

On the issue of privacy, when you rent an AI, you often upload sensitive data, sometimes unknowingly. That data can be logged, used for retraining, or even monetized. Centralized AI is opaque by design, and with geopolitical tensions rising and regulations shifting fast, depending entirely on someone else’s infrastructure is a growing liability.

What It Means to Truly Own Your Agent

Unlike passive AI models, agents are dynamic systems that can take independent actions. Ownership means controlling an agent’s core logic, decision-making parameters, and data processing. Imagine an agent that can autonomously manage resources, track expenses, set budgets, and make financial decisions on your behalf.

This naturally leads us to explore advanced infrastructures like Web3 and neobanking systems, which offer programmable ways to manage digital assets. An owned agent can operate independently within clear, user-defined boundaries, transforming AI from a responsive tool to a proactive, personalized system that truly works for you.

With true ownership, you know exactly what model you’re using and can change the underlying model if needed. You can upgrade or customize your agent without waiting on a provider. You can pause it, duplicate it, or transfer it to another device. And, most importantly, you can use it without leaking data or relying on a single centralized gatekeeper.

At Olas, we’ve been building toward this future with Pearl, an AI agent app store realised as a desktop app that allows users to run autonomous AI agents with just one click while retaining full ownership. Today, Pearl contains a number of use cases targeting primarily Web3 users to abstract the complexity of crypto interactions, with an increasing focus on Web2 use cases. Agents in Pearls hold their own wallets, operate using open-source AI models, and act independently on the user’s behalf.

When you launch Pearl, it’s like entering an app store for agents. You can pick one to manage your DeFi portfolio. You can run another that handles research or content generation. These agents don’t need constant prompting; they’re autonomous and yours. Go from paying for the agent you rent to earning from the agent you own.

We designed Pearl for crypto-native users who already understand the importance of owning their keys. However, the idea of taking self-custody of not just your funds but also your AI scales far beyond DeFi. Imagine an agent that controls your home automation, complements your social interactions, or coordinates multiple tools at work. If those agents are rented, you don’t fully control them. If you don’t fully control them, you’re increasingly outsourcing core parts of your life.

This movement is not just about tools; it’s about agency. If we fail to shift toward open, user-owned AI, we risk re-centralizing power in the hands of a few dominant players. But if we succeed, we unlock a new kind of freedom, where intelligence is not rented but truly yours, with each human complemented by an “army” of software agents.

It’s not just idealism. It’s good security. Open-source AI is auditable and peer-reviewed. Closed models are black boxes. If a humanoid robot is living in your home one day, do you want the code running it to be proprietary and controlled by a foreign cloud provider? Or do you want to be able to know exactly what it’s doing?

We have a choice: We can keep renting, trusting, and hoping nothing breaks, or we can take ownership of our tools, data, decisions, and futures.

User-owned AI isn’t just the better option. It’s the only one that respects the intelligence of the person using it.

READ MORE: Olas’ Mech Marketplace Enables AI Agents to Hire Each Other for Help

Crypto exchange Kraken has launched FX perpetual futures, expanding into traditional markets with round-the-clock trading for major forex pairs, the company said in a blog post Friday.

The first contracts, EUR/USD and GBP/USD, are now live on Kraken Pro, with more to follow.

Unlike standard forex products, FX perps have no expiry and operate 24/7, mirroring crypto futures.

With FX perps, Kraken is doubling down on serving institutional and professional traders looking for deeper exposure to fiat markets through a crypto-native platform, the company said.

Crypto and traditional financial markets are increasingly converging.

Kraken recently launched commission-free trading for U.S.-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), opening access to traditional financial markets from within the same platform it uses for cryptocurrencies and positioning itself to compete more directly with trading platforms like Robinhood (HOOD).

«Investors increasingly expect a unified trading experience that spans crypto, FX, and equities. With our recent U.S. equities launch and the addition of FX perpetuals, Kraken is delivering a comprehensive platform designed for today’s multi-asset trader,» said Alexia Theodorou, head of derivatives at Kraken, in emailed comments.

Kraken clients traded $5.4B in FX spot volume year-to-date, with $3.5B of it in EUR/USD and GBP/USD.

The exchange is teaming up with Mastercard to let crypto holders in the U.K. and Europe spend their digital assets at more than 150 million merchants worldwide, Mastercard said earlier this month

Read more: Kraken Teams Up With Mastercard to Introduce Crypto Debit Cards

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

When Friends With Benefits burst into crypto consciousness in 2020, it was the kind of FOMO-inducing project that immediately had people talking. With a wink-wink, sexy name and members including musicians Erykah Badu and Azealia Banks, it was a club that many wanted to be a part of.

Emerging at a time when everyone was locked down and hankering for connection, it filled a void and showed that crypto could bring people together for real. About 6,000 bought into the token (becoming members) and chapters sprouted up all over the world, centering on hipster-tech hubs like LA and NYC.

The New York Times, as it tends to do with crypto, gently mocked the idea. A 2022 profile opened with an anecdote about members developing a “flavored, sparkling yerba maté” with a coffee company. “It makes your soda $6 instead of $2,” said one member. The inference was clear: this was crypto kids with ideas, disposable income, plenty of time on their hands and not much to show for it.

Still, the New York Times hit on what was definitely new about FWB. It called the group — which was mostly formed on Discord — a “decentralized Soho House” and “a V.I.P. lounge for crypto’s creative class.” It was tokenizing a community (with a DAO) in a way that proved that you could create something valuable IRL as much as online. The NYT said the group had raised $10 million from investors and that, after a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, it was valued at $100 million.

It wasn’t clear what FWB did exactly. Sure, it was good at organizing cool events around the world. It was good at building community, generating FOMO through the media and boosting its token price. But after that? TBD.

“The original model was just a group chat with a token. The benefits at that time were just alpha,” CEO Greg Bresnitz said in an interview.

Fast forward to 2025, following FTX and The Crash, FWB looks like a more serious outfit. Today, it’s focused on building products that people actually want to use and has hopes to broaden Web3 beyond specialized financial products. Less yerba maté, more in-the-weeds innovation in music, film and culture.

“This is a good inflection point for the industry. We have the opportunity to encourage a new wave of builders to the space. Making that vision and the pie bigger is incredibly important,” said Bresnitz. “We’ve done really well in the physical world. Now we’re focused on the revitalization of the online world and bringing that value back.”

This week, FWB announced Friends With Builders, a cohort-based building program that’s partnered with AWS, Alchemy, ThirdWeb, QuickNode, Akave, Filecoin, Base, World and several others. The idea is to invite creative technologists to work collectively quarter-by-quarter on early-stage projects, using tools provided by the partners. The first cohort (application deadline: April 28) will be focused on developing products around AI agents.

Bresnitz stresses that Friends With Builders is definitely not a hackathon.

“The general model of the hackathon doesn’t work. You get eight hours at a conference, 48 hours to build it and then get the prize money. That only speaks to a certain type of builder who can work intensively over 48 hours,” Bresnitz said.

With Friends With Builders, the reward is the developed product, not the prize and gong given out by the hackathon organizers. It’s also focused on products where the Web 3 technology is under the hood, rather than the thing itself.

“Someone could come in and build the 700th DeFi platform and we’re not going to stop them. They totally can. That’s great. But, for me, personally, what I believe the industry needs is to bundle all this up into something that feels totally normal,” Bresnitz said.

He points to projects like Blackbird, the restaurant loyalty app, as an example of the type of product Friends With Builders wants to incubate. Blackbird is useful and has mainstream appeal, and the crypto element (it has a cryptocurrency called FLY) is de-emphasized. The point is utility, not that it’s crypto.

“We need a new type of person in this space,” Bresnitz said. “The persona of FWB has always been creative technologist. These are people who understand what people want and they’re looking for technology to support that. That’s different from what we see oftentimes [in crypto], which is ‘we built a hammer that’s also a screwdriver, who wants it?’”

Bresnitz argues that crypto has created great tooling infrastructure for builders. Now it needs to develop products that de-emphasize the technology. Builders in his program will have access to founders at the partner groups via Discord and meetups. They’ll receive developer credits and be able to tap extensive DevRel (developer support).

Friends With Builders will run in quarters 1, 2 and 4. Quarter 3 will be left for FWB’s annual FEST gathering in California, where the builders will showcase their work. Last year, Base, a key FWB partner, held its annual get-together, Base Camp, at the same location (near Idyllwild) shortly before FEST began.

As a pilot for the new program, FWB recently organized a cohort with World (previously Worldcoin). FWB/World received 140 applications and the participating builders created 40 new mini-apps. The builders flew to Buenos Aires to take part in Crecimiento, and now some will take part in a demo day in New York on May 21. Two of those projects already have term sheets from investors.

Bresnitz is a strong advocate for his initiative. But he also displays a humility toward crypto that isn’t always evident in conversations with other founders. He believes Web3 has yet to show what it can really do for the world.

“We haven’t cracked the code yet. This to me is about saying ‘can we try something different?’”