Phase, a blockchain designed to let smartphone users earn tokens by supporting AI services, has secured a $45 million funding commitment from Kirill Eves, founder of Unlimit. The funding will cover Phase's first two years of development and provide an additional two years of runway. Phase launched its mainnet on Thursday, alongside Phase Proxy, a service that routes AI agents’ web requests through smartphones.
Eves explained that websites often block or rate-limit automated traffic from data centers, even when the requests are legitimate. This restriction poses a barrier to the adoption of AI agents. Phase aims to address this issue by leveraging smartphone internet connections to route AI traffic.
Smartphone users can join the Phase network through the Phase app and earn PHASE tokens by validating blocks and sharing their internet connection. The system adjusts participation based on a device’s battery level and connectivity. Eves noted that current flagship smartphones can deliver approximately 35-45 TOPS of AI processing performance, allowing them to run smaller open-weight AI models locally.
Phase plans to launch AI computing services in November, enabling smartphone users to contribute computing power. A second service will route requests across AI models. The company also intends to develop its own model and expand to desktops, servers, and graphics processing units. Revenue from these services will fund PHASE purchases to reward node operators.