AI agents can place trades and initiate payments. But moving institutional money takes more than software that knows which button to press. Someone has to safeguard the assets, control access and provide the infrastructure that settles the transaction.
That is the next piece Puffer Finance is adding to Puffer UniFi.
On September 29, Puffer announced a partnership with Anchorage Digital, which will serve as UniFi’s day-one institutional custodian. The companies also plan to collaborate on stablecoin issuance, native settlement and payment infrastructure, including payments initiated by AI agents.
The announcement comes one week after Puffer brought Google Cloud into its infrastructure network. Together, the partnerships show how Puffer is preparing UniFi for institutions and increasingly automated financial activity ahead of launch.
A Custodian Before the Network Launches
Puffer UniFi is an Ethereum-aligned execution and settlement network being built for institutions, trading platforms and agentic commerce.
Anchorage’s role starts with custody: giving institutions an established provider through which to hold and access the assets they use on the network. The broader collaboration is intended to support moving stablecoins and settling payments within the same environment.
“Institutions want to hold assets, move stablecoins, and settle transactions onchain with the same security and controls they expect everywhere else in their business,” said Nathan McCauley, CEO and co-founder of Anchorage Digital.
“Serving as Puffer UniFi’s custodian from day one means those foundations are in place at launch, on a network that keeps institutions connected to Ethereum’s liquidity and security.”
Anchorage Digital is home to Anchorage Digital Bank N.A., America’s first federally regulated digital asset bank. The company lists a $4.2 billion valuation and backers including Andreessen Horowitz, GIC, Goldman Sachs, KKR and Visa. That figure describes Anchorage’s valuation; the announcement does not disclose a financial commitment to Puffer.
Google Cloud Handles Another Part of the Journey
As Blockster reported last week, Google Cloud joined Puffer Preconf as a gateway operator, with UniFi set to be the first rollup to use its gateway.
The gateway helps process transactions and provide sub-second preconfirmations: early commitments about execution before final settlement on Ethereum. A fast preconfirmation is distinct from the transaction reaching final settlement.
Anchorage addresses a different institutional requirement: how assets are held and how custody connects with stablecoin and payment services.
For a business evaluating onchain payments, both matter. A quick response is useful, but so are the controls around the money being moved.
Keeping Ethereum’s Liquidity Within Reach
Puffer says UniFi is designed to combine high-throughput execution with synchronous composability—a technical approach intended to let applications interact directly with Ethereum’s existing liquidity and state.
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The ambition is to give institutions a faster environment without requiring them to operate in an isolated pool of assets.
“As payments become increasingly programmable, custody and settlement infrastructure need to evolve together,” said Amir Forouzani, co-founder of Puffer Finance.
“Our partnership with Anchorage Digital brings institutional infrastructure to Puffer UniFi from day one, creating rails for stablecoins, payments, and agentic financial activity while remaining composable with Ethereum.”
AI Payments Need More Than Speed
The agentic-payments component connects this announcement to a broader shift Blockster has been following: software gaining the ability to trade, borrow and spend on someone’s behalf.
Our recent coverage of NVIDIA’s work with more than 100 organizations on agent-safety technologies examined the controls needed around that activity. Puffer and Anchorage are addressing the financial infrastructure underneath it.
These are complementary problems. An agent needs permission to act, an account or wallet from which to pay, and a reliable way to complete the transaction. Custody and settlement address part of that chain; they do not, by themselves, determine whether an agent made the right decision.
UniFi is still being built out ahead of launch. The announcement does not name a new stablecoin, disclose payment volumes or provide a launch date. For now, the concrete development is the addition of an institutional custodian and a plan to connect custody, stablecoins and automated payments on Ethereum.