Fuse Network, a seven-year-old EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain built for real-world payments, has published a new infrastructure roadmap focusing on AI-enabled payments and last-mile commerce. The Tel Aviv-based project, which has operated without downtime since 2019, is doubling down on its L1 architecture to serve as a settlement layer for AI-native transactions, targeting small businesses, freelancers, and local merchants who have historically lacked access to sophisticated financial infrastructure.
CEO and Co-Founder Mark Smargon emphasized that the missing piece for last-mile payments is not regulation or adoption, but the right infrastructure — and AI agents make that infrastructure viable at scale. The roadmap includes native support for emerging agentic payment standards like x402, MPP, UCP, ACP, and ERC-8183, alongside a dedicated Fuse MCP server to expose the network's capabilities to AI tools. Transaction speeds under 200ms and fees of fractions of a cent are promised.
The consumer demand layer is powered by Solid, Fuse's non-custodial neobanking app that combines stablecoin and Ethereum yield with a Visa debit card accepted in 49 countries. Solid's roadmap extends into lending, insurance, index funds, and equities — all on the same non-custodial stack — generating sustained on-chain activity. Fuse consciously chose to remain an L1, arguing that L2 technology remains insufficiently decentralized and operationally unstable for its use case, while the L1/L2 distinction is collapsing as sovereign chains converge on execution, ownership, and economics.
A major validator network upgrade is underway, and transaction fees remain consistently low. The network's long-term goal, according to Smargon, is to give every business and user a private key, eliminating dependency on centralized platforms.
