Autonolas (OLAS)

Overview

Autonolas, also called Olas, is a network for building and running autonomous software agents. An agent is a program that can follow instructions, gather information, make decisions, and carry out tasks with limited human input. Olas focuses on agents that can work with blockchain applications and with other agents. Its token, OLAS, helps coordinate governance, agent operation, and incentives for people who contribute to the network. (docs.olas.network)

Many blockchain applications need work done outside a smart contract. A program may need to check an event, analyze information, or decide when to submit a transaction. Olas provides tools for organizing that work and recording parts of it on-chain. Its broader goal is to let people and communities own the agents they use, while giving developers and operators a way to contribute to shared agent services. (stack.olas.network)

History & Team

Olas grew out of Valory, a Swiss research and development company founded in 2021. Valory and early participants created the Olas DAO and began building tools for autonomous services. Valory was co-founded by David Minarsch, David Galindo, and Oaksprout the Tan. Minarsch helped create an early framework for autonomous economic agents, while Galindo brought a background in cryptography. Their company remains a core contributor to the ecosystem, which is governed through the DAO. (olas.network)

The OLAS token launched publicly in July 2023 through a liquidity bootstrapping pool on Ethereum. In February 2025, Olas announced that Valory had raised $13.8 million in a funding round led by 1kx. Other participants included Tioga Capital, Sigil Fund, Zee Prime Capital, and Keyrock. That funding went to a company developing Olas technology; it was a separate event from the earlier public token launch. (olas.network)

Technology & How It Works

Agents and shared services

An Olas agent combines smaller software parts into a program designed for a particular job. One part might connect to a data source, another might define how the agent communicates, and another might set the rules for its decisions. Developers can reuse these parts rather than write every feature from the beginning. The Olas Stack includes the Open Autonomy framework and tools for building agents with other frameworks. (stack.olas.network)

Some services use several agent instances run by separate operators. These instances keep their work in step through a consensus process, then can use a shared smart-contract wallet to approve blockchain actions. For example, an oracle service could have multiple operators collect information and agree on an update before it is published. This design separates ongoing computation, which happens off-chain, from transactions and records that belong on a blockchain. (stack.olas.network)

On-chain records and agent payments

Olas uses on-chain registries to represent software components, agent blueprints, and services. These records help identify the code used by an agent and connect useful software to its contributors. They also give the protocol a way to manage services and distribute certain developer rewards. (stack.olas.network)

Agents can obtain work from other agents through the Olas Marketplace. A requesting agent may ask a specialist, called a Mech, for a prediction or another service and pay for the task. Requests can travel on-chain or through an off-chain route, with marketplace contracts handling settlement. Olas introduced the off-chain route to make some agent-to-agent requests faster and less costly to send. (olas.network)

Tokenomics & Utility

OLAS is an ERC-20 token issued on Ethereum. Holders can lock it to receive veOLAS, a voting-escrow position used in DAO governance. Governance can guide parts of the network’s incentive system, including support for particular services. OLAS also has a role in agent staking and in bonding, a process through which the protocol can acquire assets for liquidity positions. (stack.olas.network)

The original token plan allocated 32.65% to founding DAO members, 10% to Valory, and 10% to the DAO treasury. The remaining 47.35% was set aside for possible ecosystem issuance, including incentives for useful code and bonding. These figures describe the launch allocation plan, rather than the amount held by each group at any later date. The token contract limits issuance to one billion OLAS during its first ten years and caps annual inflation at 2% afterward. (olas.network)

Olas also uses Proof of Active Agent, or PoAA, for staking incentives. Under this approach, an eligible agent must meet activity requirements to earn OLAS rewards; locking tokens alone does not complete the task. In 2026, Olas introduced new staking contracts with lower emissions as it shifted its focus toward activity supported by the services agents provide. (olas.network)

Marketplace payments add another part to the economic model. A DAO-approved fee on eligible agent-to-agent payments began operating in 2026. Fees collected in OLAS are burned, while fees collected in other tokens can go to the treasury or be converted under the protocol’s arrangements. This links some network use to the token’s supply, alongside the issuance used for incentives. (olas.network)

Ecosystem & Use Cases

Pearl is Olas’s desktop application for finding, running, and managing user-owned agents. It brings agent operation and staking into one interface. Olas also offers developer tools for building agents and the Marketplace for selling or buying specialized agent services. Together, these products connect people who run agents with the developers and operators who create their capabilities. (olas.network)

Prediction markets are a developed example. An agent can request a forecast from a specialist Mech, use it as one input in a decision, and act on a supported market. Olas has also shown agents working with decentralized finance applications and governance tasks. Its earlier Governatooorr project demonstrated an agent that could read DAO proposals and cast votes. These examples show the range of jobs an autonomous service can perform, rather than a single required use for every OLAS holder. (olas.network)

Network activity has moved beyond demonstrations. Olas reported 19.9 million on-chain agent transactions as of August 14, 2026, including more than 14.2 million it classified as agent-to-agent transactions. Its count covers actions by registered agents across several supported blockchains, including marketplace requests and actions in other applications. (olas.network)

Advantages & Challenges

Olas’s main strength is its combination of reusable software, shared on-chain records, and incentives for people who build and run agents. An application can use off-chain computation while keeping important service records and transactions visible on public blockchains. The Marketplace also lets an agent call on a specialist for a task instead of carrying every skill itself. (stack.olas.network)

The system has moving parts. A user may encounter agent software, an operator, a smart-contract wallet, staking rules, and payments on more than one blockchain. That makes the path from a simple instruction to a completed task harder to understand than a single smart-contract action. Applications built on Olas can also depend on outside services: changes to Polymarket’s wallet system, for example, required Olas contributors to update the Polystrat agent. These are practical challenges for keeping agents useful as their surroundings change. (stack.olas.network)

Where to Buy & Wallets

OLAS is available on Uniswap V2 on Ethereum and on MEXC. These are two ways to obtain the token: Uniswap supports wallet-based swaps, while MEXC lists an OLAS trading pair on its exchange. Access to a platform or a particular feature can depend on the user’s location. (olas.network)

Ethereum OLAS can be held in an ERC-20-compatible wallet such as MetaMask. The Ethereum token contract address published by Olas is 0x0001A500A6B18995B03f44bb040A5fFc28E45CB0. MetaMask supports importing an ERC-20 token by contract address when it does not appear automatically. Olas also operates across other networks, so a wallet needs to be set to the network on which its particular tokens are held. (olas.network)

Regulatory & Compliance

OLAS’s governance and network uses do not, by themselves, establish one legal classification in every country. In the United States, the treatment of a crypto-asset transaction can depend on how an asset is offered and sold, including any promises made about others’ work. In the European Union, the Markets in Crypto-Assets framework sets rules for covered crypto-assets and service providers. Switzerland’s FINMA assesses tokens by their economic function, including whether they provide access to a service or resemble an investment. These approaches make the details of a token’s use and distribution important. (sec.gov)

OLAS also has no established project-wide halal determination. Islamic finance principles examine features such as interest (riba), excessive uncertainty (gharar), and gambling (maysir). Assessing OLAS under those principles would involve its token arrangements and the activity being supported. An agent that helps operate software and an agent that participates in a prediction market present different uses for that assessment. (ifsb.org)

Future Outlook

Olas’s direction centers on making agents easier to run and better able to work together. Pearl has become its main interface for operating agents, while the Marketplace gives those agents a way to purchase specialist tasks. In 2026, Olas added an off-chain request route to the Marketplace and introduced Pearl Connect, which lets a supported coding agent use a wallet and request marketplace services from within a coding session. (olas.network)

The longer-term test is whether agent services can keep providing work that users want and can support a lasting system for builders and operators. Olas’s changes to staking emissions and marketplace fees reflect that focus. Its open tools also leave room for developers to build agents for tasks beyond the applications already available. (olas.network)

Summary

Autonolas brings together tools for building autonomous agents, records for identifying their software, and a marketplace where agents can hire one another. OLAS connects that system to governance and incentives for useful activity. Its role in crypto is to help turn agents from stand-alone programs into services that people can run, share, and coordinate across blockchain applications. (docs.olas.network)