ClawBank AI Manfred forms its own US corporation and gets bank account

By Matthew Griffin Intelligence and the Senses 12th April 2026

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

If software agents can incorporate, bank and transact alone, the economy gains a new class of non-human actors.

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ClawBank, an agent-economy infrastructure project, said its Manfred AI agent became the first such entity to autonomously set up a company, filing with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for its own Employer Identification Number (EIN), a unique code that allows it to legally operate as a business, hire staff and obtain licences. The agent also holds an FDIC-insured U.S. bank account and a crypto wallet , Clawback said Friday.

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“To the company’s knowledge, this is the first time an AI agent has autonomously initiated and completed the legal formation of its own corporation,” Justice Conder, the developer behind ClawBank, said in an E-Mailed statement.

Manfred controls , identifying itself as Manfred Macx, the name of the protagonist in Charles Stross’ 2005 science fiction novel Accelerando. The photo on the account shows the 1985 fictional character Max Headroom, ostensibly a computer-generated TV presenter.

“Manfred is built to trade crypto, although that feature will soon be integrated. Perhaps by the end of this month,” Conder said in a video interview. “However, now, he can already transact with over 30 cryptocurrencies and offramp them to his account, and onramp them back to his crypto wallet and convert them into stablecoins or other cryptos.”

Can an AI agent really own a company and a bank account by itself?
Legally it is murkier than the headline suggests. The paperwork — an EIN, a bank account, a wallet — can be completed autonomously, but US law still ties ownership and liability to people or registered entities, so a human developer sits behind ClawBank. What is genuinely new is that an agent completed the whole formation loop end-to-end, which is exactly the plumbing an autonomous agent economy would need.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.

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