By 2025, humanoid robots are moving from science fiction into reality. From Tesla's Optimus to Figure AI's Figure 01, the capabilities of general-purpose humanoid robots are rapidly expanding with the support of large-scale language models. Goldman Sachs predicts that the humanoid robot market will reach $154 billion by 2035. This massive trillion-dollar market is attracting the world's top technology companies and brightest minds.
However, as robots' "limbs" become increasingly sophisticated, a more fundamental question arises: how do we build a sufficiently intelligent, open, and secure "brain"? When thousands of robots enter homes, hospitals, and cities, how will they collaborate, exchange value, and seamlessly integrate into human society?
Stanford University professor and OpenMind founder Jan Liphardt offers his answer. Since securing $20 million in funding led by Pantera Capital in August 2025, OpenMind has accelerated its pace, releasing a series of products ranging from the underlying operating system to upper-layer payment protocols, gradually outlining the complete blueprint for its "robot brain."
OpenMind's core business is providing cloud-based cognitive services to enterprises using a SaaS model. However, they have astutely recognized that as robots become independent economic participants, blockchain will play a crucial role in areas such as payment systems, identity authentication, data privacy, and collaborative governance.
The recent collaboration between OpenMind and stablecoin issuer Circle, along with the deployment of robotic charging stations on the streets of San Francisco, represents the initial realization of this vision. Robots can independently pay for charging via USDC, potentially marking the dawn of a new era of the "Machine Economy."
Meanwhile, OpenMind is also building a dedicated app store for its robots, allowing users to download applications and skills to their robots in one place, just like customizing mobile apps in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. This app launched on the OpenMind App Store last week.
In this exclusive interview, we delved into the philosophy behind building the "brain" of robots, the design principles of the modular operating system OM1, and how to construct a future of efficient collaboration between machines and between machines and humans through the FABRIC protocol and blockchain technology. He shared OpenMind's technology roadmap and offered insightful perspectives on key issues such as the developer ecosystem, remote operation, and data privacy.
The following is the content of the interview:
Creating a "bank account" for the robot
In December 2025, OpenMind and stablecoin issuer Circle jointly announced the launch of a robot autonomous payment system based on the x402 protocol. As robots' capabilities increase, they will no longer be merely tools for performing tasks, but will begin to play the role of autonomous economic entities. They will need to purchase computing power, data, skills, and even hire other robots or humans to complete complex tasks.
To achieve this, a financial system designed specifically for machines and requiring no human intervention becomes indispensable. The traditional banking system is clearly unprepared for this, making cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, with their inherent digital and decentralized characteristics, the most natural choice.
