MetaMask Advances Open Money Strategy with mUSD, Cards, and Agent Payments

Written by: FourPillars

Compiled by AididiaoJP, Foresight News

The balance in your bank app is not money you directly hold; it’s a recorded claim on the bank’s ledger. This closed currency requires permission, relies on intermediaries, and is highly fragmented—friction immediately becomes apparent when money needs to move across systems or borders.

Open money shifts the center of money from institutional accounts to user wallets. Wallets are not boxes that store assets, but keys that move them. On a self-custodial basis, money becomes programmable and composable.

MetaMask is evolving the wallet into a monetary operating system by integrating mUSD, cards, and proxy payments—all into one wallet: storing, spending, paying, and even proxy authorization. This is the ultimate form of a wallet—open money.

Open your bank’s mobile app. The balance displayed prominently in the center of the home screen naturally feels like your own money. In daily life, this assumption rarely causes problems—salaries arrive on time, and payments or transfers require just a few taps. In countries with well-developed financial infrastructure, the user experience involves almost no friction. As a result, most people never ask: “Is this money truly mine to own directly?”

However, structurally, the balance in a bank app is not a pile of physical cash; it is more like a record on the bank’s ledger of the bank’s obligation to pay me. In other words, it is not like cash in my hand, but rather a claim against the bank. As long as this money exists as a claim on the bank’s ledger, the ultimate authority to determine whether it can be moved is not entirely mine.

This fact is usually not obvious. But when you encounter transfer limits or account freezes, even though your balance appears to be there, you can’t move a single cent. Although it seems like your asset, structurally it’s a claim against the bank—meaning the power to block or freeze it lies outside of you.

If this friction stems from the legal nature of money, we must also examine the fragmented infrastructure underlying money flows. Even with active accounts and no limits, friction arises the moment funds enter another system—for example, in cross-border transfers: filters that don’t exist within the same currency zone appear—foreign exchange, intermediary banks, fees, and business days. I cannot fully control when the funds will arrive.

These two frictions stem from the same structure: institutions lock my money in siloed ledgers that are fragmented from one another. Owning money and being able to move it as I wish are two entirely different things. We refer to money with these characteristics, as encountered in everyday life, as “closed money.” The bottlenecks created by this structure are often hard to notice—only becoming clearly apparent when money moves across borders, platforms, or systems.

Can this closed structure be opened? Open money is an attempt to address this bottleneck. Its core idea is to let money flow like the internet—no longer locked within specific institutions or national borders.

To understand open money, first recognize closed money.

First, closed currencies require permission. To move money, someone must approve it. Banks authorize transfers, card networks authorize payments, and payment networks process transactions. The user clicks a button, but the actual movement of funds is authorized within the system.

Closed currencies are intermediated. There is always a third party between me and my assets. A bank app is a window into the bank’s ledger, a brokerage app is a screen for the brokerage’s account system, and a payment app may offer a smooth user experience, but beneath the surface, it remains an interface to banks, card networks, and merchant settlement systems.

Finally, money is fragmented. Money in your bank account, brokerage account, payment app balance, exchange balance, and U.S. dollars in overseas accounts all appear to be “my money,” but in reality, they are scattered across different systems. Every time you want to move money from one system to another, you must go through withdrawal, deposit, settlement, and approval procedures all over again.

This system is very stable. It includes consumer protections that often allow funds to be recovered, and users are already accustomed to it. Therefore, simply saying “banks are fake” actually undermines the persuasiveness of open money. People are already using it effectively, and this system has been functioning for centuries.

The real question is: In an era when money already moves over the internet, should it still remain so closed off? Music transitioned from files to streaming, software moved from discs to the cloud, and information crossed boundaries through APIs and apps. Yet money remains scattered across institution-specific ledgers. Open money is focused on changing this.

Open currency shifts the center of money from institutional accounts to user wallets.

In an open currency world, users connect to the network through wallets. Here, a wallet is more than just an app. On-chain, a wallet is an account, a login, a signing authority, and the key to moving assets. If a banking app is a window into your ledger, a wallet is closer to the direct power to move your assets.

Of course, assets do not physically exist in a wallet. On-chain assets are recorded on blockchain addresses, and wallets manage the private keys and signing permissions that allow movement of those assets. In simple terms, a wallet is not a box that holds money—it’s the key that moves it.

Holding the key directly is self-custody. Self-custody isn't just "I store it myself"—it means not depositing funds into someone else's account, but rather directly controlling your assets with a key you hold. The core of open money is control.

Blockchain fits this structure perfectly, because it turns money into a state on a public network rather than a record in a company’s database. Everyone can see the same rules, use the same address system, and interact with the same protocols. Assets can move 24/7, can carry conditions and logic via smart contracts, and services can connect to each other without permission.

This is programmable and composable money. Money is no longer just a number to be sent and received—it can be combined with code, moved automatically, connected to other financial protocols, and settled directly on a global network.

At this point, blockchain transitions from an abstract technical discussion into a tangible user experience. For example, freelancers receiving payments from overseas clients, startups paying teams across multiple countries, or users wanting to hold and use stablecoins outside of exchanges. The same applies to internet-native economic activities such as gaming, content creation, and AI agents, as well as on-chain users who move assets continuously in open markets. For them, what matters is that money can flow freely without being locked into specific banks, countries, or apps.

This architecture itself is not a completed alternative. Self-custody grants users control, but also responsibility. Key management, phishing, incorrect signatures, and recovery are all risks users must handle themselves. Therefore, the core challenge of open currency is not merely whether users directly control their own funds, but whether it’s possible to reduce friction around security and user experience while maintaining user control.

At the heart of this shift is self-custody wallets, and MetaMask is a clear example of how wallets have evolved into financial platforms.

It began as a simple wallet. Before MetaMask, interacting with the Ethereum network meant dealing with the command line—running nodes, connecting to RPC, handling private keys directly, and signing transactions one by one—barriers too high for average users. MetaMask lowered these barriers with a browser extension, turning the creation of Ethereum accounts, connection to dApps, and transaction signing into just a few clicks.

As more wallets with similar structures emerge over time, the role of wallets has evolved. Initially, they were simply used to store tokens, then became a means to log into dApps, followed by taking on functions like swapping, cross-chain bridging, and multi-chain connectivity. Now, stablecoins, card payments, yield products, and derivatives are all entering wallets. Underlying this transformation is the absorption of financial functionalities into wallets, built on self-custody.

Existing fintech super apps also bundle many features, combining transfers, investments, cards, rewards, and loans into a single app. However, most still operate on platform accounts and ledgers maintained by partner financial institutions. Users gain the convenience of a single app, but their funds remain within closed systems.

MetaMask takes a different approach—it places the user’s wallet at the center of all financial activity. Whether users are swapping, holding stablecoins, bridging chains, or using a card, the starting point is always their wallet, not a platform account. This may seem like a small difference, but within the architecture of open finance, it’s a critical one: control of funds shifts from platform accounts to user wallets.

Dollars in wallet: mUSD

MetaMask's mUSD demonstrates this direction.

There are already multiple USD-backed stablecoins on the market. What sets mUSD apart is not its issuance, but its seamless integration within wallet experiences. Users can hold USD-denominated assets in their wallets, exchange them, transfer them across chains, deposit them into DeFi when needed, and use them for payments.

Previously, this process was split into multiple steps: users bought assets on an exchange, transferred them to a wallet, connected to a dApp, and then sent them back to the exchange to cash out. This was already cumbersome for on-chain users and a genuine barrier for average users. All they wanted to do was use their money, yet they were forced to act like plumbers—needing to know which chain to use, which network to withdraw to, what a bridge is, and why fees are required.

mUSD has bundled these steps into the wallet. When dollar-denominated assets reside in the wallet and can simultaneously connect to on-chain finance and real-world payments, the wallet transforms from merely a storage location into a unified structure for storing, using, and paying—all in one place.

Additionally, mUSD held in the user's Money Account can earn up to an annual percentage yield (APY) of 6%. This interest is not paid directly by MetaMask, but rather arises from the automatic deployment of deposited funds into on-chain lending markets, generating variable returns. Importantly, there is no lock-up period—users can freely spend, send, or trade these funds at any time.

On-chain money enters the real world: The MetaMask Card

For open currencies to truly function, they must ultimately be spendable.

Even if users manage their assets well on-chain, their experience remains incomplete for the mass market if they can’t buy a cup of coffee at a nearby café. In real life, people care more about money they can actually use for payments than financial philosophy. That’s why the MetaMask Card matters.

Many existing crypto cards require users to deposit their assets into the exchange or card company’s account. While convenient, they bring users back into a custodial structure—ultimately, users still entrust their assets to a third party.

The MetaMask card keeps assets in the user’s wallet until the moment of payment. Users can connect assets from their wallet to real-world card payment networks. This is the moment when on-chain assets are no longer just digital numbers in an investment app, but become a practical means of everyday payment.

This is the most direct vision of open money: money is still in my wallet right before payment, and used at real merchants when needed. The central hub for storing, managing, and spending money has become a wallet.

There are still practical limitations, including supported countries, issuing institutions, card networks, regulatory requirements, and merchant policies. These issues are still being addressed, resulting in varying user experiences across regions. Nevertheless, the direction MetaMask is heading is clear: wallets are evolving into interfaces between on-chain assets and offline payments. At this stage, wallets are no longer just “crypto storage apps,” but actual payment interfaces for spending money.

Another tool for open currencies:代理钱包

Let’s now look at a more forward-looking topic. So far, everything we’ve discussed assumes that the entity moving and using money is a person.

But what if the entity spending money isn’t human? This assumption begins to unravel when AI agents conduct research, renew subscriptions, and settle fees for each API call. If a human must approve and sign off on every payment, it’s not automation—that’s precisely the bottleneck in agent payments. Transactions need to occur at machine speed, yet human decision-making is inserted into every transaction.

The simplest solution is to hand over the entire private key to the proxy. But this directly undermines self-custody. Once the key is handed over, the proxy can use the entire wallet at will, and the user loses control. Automation comes at the cost of the control that open money is meant to protect.

MetaMask is taking a different approach. Smart accounts leverage account abstraction to delegate specific permissions without surrendering control of the keys. Through ERC-7710 delegations and ERC-7715 permission requests, users can grant agents limited authority—such as “spend up to 10 USDC per day for one month, exclusively to buy ETH.” The agent can then execute trades within these bounds without human intervention, while the user retains full control over the entire wallet. This is precisely where automation and self-custody can coexist without conflict.

This structure itself is not entirely new. In 2023, MetaMask introduced a similar concept in the form of “Trusted Sessions.” After users approve session keys, transactions within that scope no longer require individual signatures for each action. A typical example at the time was blockchain games, where users did not want to handle wallet pop-ups for every single move. This idea, which originated in gaming, has now been standardized through ERC-7710 and ERC-7715, becoming the foundation for delegating permissions to agents rather than humans.

With the addition of x402, the proxy payment framework is now complete. x402 defines a machine-readable payment protocol on top of HTTP. Based on ERC-7710 delegation, agents can make on-demand payments, autonomously subscribe to services, and stream micropayments without requiring manual wallet intervention. This is difficult to achieve in closed currency systems, where every step requires human approval. A payment network where machines directly send money to other machines under predefined conditions has now been built on top of wallets.

One place this effort is visible is the Smart Accounts Kit hackathon, co-hosted by MetaMask. A total of 321 developers submitted 142 projects, setting a new record for the highest number of submissions in a MetaMask hackathon. The theme focused on applications for proxy-based autonomous payments, with proxies also participating in the judging.

Above fiat currency, wallets ultimately become the permission layer through which humans delegate agents to move money. If a wallet is the operating system of money, agent payments are the moment this operating system opens up to both agents and humans.

Back to the title. Wallets were originally simple signing tools—used solely for sending tokens, connecting to dApps, and approving transactions.

But if a wallet is the key to a user’s assets, more financial functionalities will naturally be built on top of it. Exchange, cross-chain transfers, stablecoins, yield products, card payments, multi-chain features, and derivatives trading will all integrate into the wallet. This is not merely a list of features—it’s the process of the wallet becoming a monetary operating system.

In a world of closed currencies, financial apps are windows into institutional systems. In a world of open currencies, wallets are the starting point for users to directly handle money on the network. The question isn’t whether wallets will fully replace banks—it’s that a new option has emerged. Existing finance will continue to handle everyday domestic payments effectively. But money that is global, programmable, and able to move across apps and protocols requires a different structure. Wallets sit at the center of that structure.

If the balance in a banking app is just a number on a ledger, a blockchain wallet is the key that directly moves assets. Closed currencies lock users into a system, while open currencies let users move freely between systems using their own wallets.

This is why the ultimate destination of wallets is open money. Token storage, dApp login, and NFTs are merely intermediate steps. The end goal is a new layer: users directly control their own money and move it freely, enabling money to flow like the internet.