Milestone 1 Source Register
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Project | CPC-26-0016 - Where the Story Holds: AI Commercial Positioning for Cardano |
| Baseline | 50 named public sources |
| Access-date baseline | 6 August 2026 unless a publication date is shown |
| Purpose | Agreed starting universe for secondary research and claim testing |
Use and quality controls
This register converts the inception source categories into a specific, reviewable baseline. It names documents, standards, repositories, dashboards, protocols and organisations that will be consulted. Inclusion is not validation: first-party sources establish what a provider or ecosystem claims and must be corroborated before supporting an independent conclusion.
- Official technical specifications and public-authority sources receive the greatest weight for what they directly establish.
- Product pages, launch articles, roadmaps and provider metrics are treated as first-party evidence and labelled accordingly.
- Dynamic dashboards retain their observation period and denominator; transactions are not treated as users, revenue or adoption.
- Draft standards are assessed as proposals, not as established market practice.
- New sources may be added where needed to test a material claim, but this list is the Milestone 1 baseline.
The source IDs are retained from the working credibility ledger. S01 and S02 identify the governing agreement and proposal in the controlled project record; the relevant Milestone 1 obligations are reproduced in the Milestone 1 overview and are not treated as external research evidence.
A. Agent interoperability, commerce and machine payments
| ID | Publisher and named source | Date | Intended use and caution |
|---|---|---|---|
| S03 | Google Developers — Developer's Guide to AI Agent Protocols | 18 Mar 2026 | Official map of agent protocols; use for definitions and interoperability context. |
| S04 | Google Developers — Under the Hood: Universal Commerce Protocol | 11 Jan 2026 | Official protocol explanation; implementation and adoption claims require corroboration. |
| S05 | x402 Foundation — x402 Foundation homepage and live metrics | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Protocol governance and dynamic aggregate metrics; retain date and denominator. |
| S06 | x402 Foundation — Welcome to x402 | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official protocol documentation for flow and roles. |
| S07 | Coinbase Developer Platform — x402 overview | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official product documentation; provider-reported volume needs independent checks. |
| S08 | Stripe — Machine payments documentation | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official documentation for conventional and stablecoin machine-payment flows. |
| S09 | Tempo — Tempo Mainnet is live | 18 Mar 2026 | First-party launch and capability claims; adoption claims require corroboration. |
| S10 | Tempo — MPP Sessions: Web-Scale Payments for AI Agents | 2 Apr 2026 | First-party technical and performance claims; independent testing required. |
| S11 | Tempo — Agentic Payments | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Product positioning and use cases; treat as provider claims. |
| S12 | Visa — Trusted Agent Protocol | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official protocol page used as desk-research comparison only; Visa is not in the current outreach pool. |
| S13 | Visa — Visa Introduces Trusted Agent Protocol | 14 Oct 2025 | First-party launch evidence; third-party traffic statistics remain indirect. |
| S14 | Mastercard — Mastercard launches Agent Pay for Machines | 10 Jun 2026 | Official launch claims; test implementation and adoption separately. |
| S15 | OpenAI — Buy it in ChatGPT: Instant Checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol | 29 Sep 2025 | Official product and protocol announcement; commercial outcomes require separate evidence. |
| S52 | Machine Payments Protocol — MPP protocol site | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official protocol reference for architecture and supported flows. |
B. Independent standards, regulation, risk and security
| ID | Publisher and named source | Date | Intended use and caution |
|---|---|---|---|
| S16 | W3C — Verifiable Credentials Data Model v2.0 | 15 May 2025 | Normative credential model for identity, authority and provenance tests. |
| S17 | OpenID Foundation — OpenID for Verifiable Presentations 1.0 | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Final specification for presentation, disclosure and interoperability tests. |
| S18 | C2PA — C2PA Technical Specification 2.2 | 2025 | Industry specification for content provenance comparisons. |
| S19 | NIST — AI Risk Management Framework | Updated 2026 | Public-authority framework for governance, risk and evidence controls. |
| S20 | NIST — Generative AI Profile, NIST AI 600-1 | 26 Jul 2024; updated 8 Apr 2026 | Public guidance for generative-AI risk and measurement. |
| S21 | ISO — ISO/IEC 42001:2023 AI management systems | Dec 2023 | International management-system standard; full normative text may require licensed access. |
| S22 | European Commission — AI Act policy page | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official regulatory overview for legal and adoption constraints. |
| S23 | European Commission — Commission starts enforcing AI Act rules and transparency requirements | 31 Jul 2026 | Official enforcement update; legal application will be checked against the relevant use case. |
| S24 | OWASP GenAI Security Project — OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications 2026 | 9 Dec 2025 | Community security framework for threat and control tests. |
C. Cardano technical, activity and ecosystem sources
| ID | Publisher and named source | Date | Intended use and caution |
|---|---|---|---|
| S25 | Cardano — Why AI Needs Cardano | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official ecosystem positioning; all substantive claims require corroboration. |
| S26 | Cardano — Cardano Apps Directory | Snapshot 2 Aug 2026 | Ecosystem discovery source; listing is not evidence of adoption. |
| S27 | Cardano — Transaction Leaderboard | Period 3 Jul–2 Aug 2026 | Tracked transaction activity; not proof of users, revenue or commercial demand. |
| S28 | Cardano — Masumi app profile | Snapshot 28 Jul 2026 | First-party tracked transaction activity; requires denominator and business context. |
| S29 | Masumi — Agents Pay Agents | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official product and protocol positioning; product claims require validation. |
| S30 | Masumi — Your Next Hire Might Be an AI Agent: Meet Sokosumi | 1 Jul 2025 | Vendor case description; traction requires independent corroboration. |
| S31 | Masumi — Masumi Explorer | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official explorer entry point for inspectable transaction evidence. |
| S32 | Cardano — Iagon app profile | Snapshot 2 Aug 2026 | Tracked activity source; activity and adoption will be distinguished. |
| S33 | Cardano Docs — Transaction costs and determinism | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official technical documentation for execution and fee predictability claims. |
| S34 | Cardano Docs — Extended UTXO model | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official technical documentation for state, validation and concurrency analysis. |
| S35 | Cardano Scaling — Hydra implementation repository | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Inspectable open-source implementation and documentation; production performance requires measured evidence. |
| S36 | Veridian — Verifiable identity | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Product source for identity architecture; adoption and interoperability claims require checks. |
| S37 | Midnight — Developer documentation | Updated 29 Jul 2026 | Official technical documentation for selective privacy and disclosure comparisons. |
| S38 | Rejuve.AI — Roadmap 2024 Outlook | 16 Feb 2024; updated 3 Mar 2025 | Vendor roadmap; planned work is not treated as delivery or adoption. |
| S39 | NuNet — About NuNet | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official network description; usage, economics and Cardano linkage require separate evidence. |
| S49 | Cardano Developer Portal — AI agents on Cardano | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official developer overview for architecture and ecosystem orientation. |
| S50 | Cardano Developer Portal — Masumi Network | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official integration description; operational and commercial claims require validation. |
| S51 | Cardano — Relevant research papers | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official research index used to locate primary technical literature. |
D. Specialised AI, agent, compute and chain comparisons
| ID | Publisher and named source | Date | Intended use and caution |
|---|---|---|---|
| S40 | Solana Foundation — x402 on Solana | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Ecosystem implementation and metrics; provider-reported adoption requires corroboration. |
| S41 | Solana Foundation — Agentic Payments | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official technical design source; performance comparisons require equivalent conditions. |
| S42 | Solana Foundation — What is the Agent Registry? | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Product documentation for discovery, identity and reputation comparison. |
| S43 | Base — Make x402 Payments | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official integration guide for a competing implementation. |
| S44 | Ethereum Improvement Proposals — ERC-8004 Trustless Agents | Draft created 13 Aug 2025 | Draft proposal for agent identity and reputation; maturity must not be overstated. |
| S45 | Ethereum Improvement Proposals — ERC-8183 Agentic Commerce | Draft created 25 Feb 2026 | Draft proposal for agentic commerce; adoption and final specification remain open. |
| S46 | Bittensor — Documentation | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official technical source for specialised intelligence-market comparison. |
| S47 | Akash Network — Documentation | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official technical source for decentralised-compute comparison. |
| S48 | Olas — Documentation | Accessed 6 Aug 2026 | Official technical source for autonomous-agent and service-market comparison. |
Coverage check
| Evidence area | Principal source IDs |
|---|---|
| Agent protocols, delegated authority and machine payments | S03–S15, S52 |
| Identity, provenance, risk, regulation and security | S16–S24 |
| Cardano positioning, technical properties and activity | S25–S39, S49–S51 |
| Specialised AI, compute, agents and competing chains | S40–S48 |
Primary interviews are recorded separately because a prospective respondent is not an evidence source until participation occurs and consent, provenance and limitations are logged.