AGI3: Strategic Institutional Ecosystem Partnership and Investment in Fluid
This proposal was co-authored by Fluid Foundation and AGI3 Group, acting within their respective mandates, and reflecting the teams’ view on the institutional expansion of the Fluid protocol.
Context
AGI3 was launched within the Kinetic Group with a mandate to build a composite future financial infrastructure across payments and banking, capital markets and tokenization.
Kinetic Group is a privately owned, multi-billion-dollar asset management group and fund management firm regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA, licensed: FA009120). Kinetic’s unique positioning comes through its licensed activities spanning from managing assets, arranging custody, advising on financial products, arranging credit and advising on credit, managing collective investment funds, and being the only fund platform to have digital assets endorsements. Kinetic is backed by and manages the prominent GCC region royal families and sovereign funds, and is actively managing their assets and portfolios with leading financial institutions across the world such as J.P. Morgan, HSBC, Julius Baer, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered, Nomura, Deutsche Bank, amongst others.
Background
Fluid is one of the most established protocols in DeFi and is now ready to expand into compliant institutional finance. The world’s largest capital allocators – sovereign wealth funds, banks, asset managers, family offices – require regulated, auditable infrastructure before entering crypto. This next growth phase demands off-chain entities and custody standards.
Fluid and AGI3 teams have been working on this initiative for the past year in stealth with the vision of Re-Defining finance. On the DeFi side, we built regulatory components that are needed for institutions to come on-chain. On the institutional side, we created a legal framework and institutional ecosystem to allow tokenization and direct integration of AGI3 markets into the existing financial system.
Notably, Fluid recently established a legal foundation to meet off-chain requirements (AML/KYC, banking, legal) while preserving on-chain governance. The proposed AGI3 partnership builds on that: AGI3 builds and operates multi-jurisdictional regulated entities to interface with institutions, deploy tokenization frameworks, and run permissioned markets.
Vision
The DeFi landscape is on the verge of institutional adoption. Coming from the broader EU and GCC region, AGI3 Group sees a trillion-dollar opportunity in tokenizing energy, commodities, and other real-world assets that require the right rails and influence to come on-chain in the next several years. To capture this opportunity, we have already built the right foundational architecture and ecosystem.
AGI3 is extending its licence framework across the world to serve institutional players and to build retail-facing fintech products. AGI3 markets will be powered by Fluid with additional regulatory components across Ethereum and other chains, including non-EVM chains.
This strategic partnership enables Fluid to leap into the next phase of regulated and permissioned DeFi by onboarding large institutions from the GCC, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, private banks, asset managers, and custodians – bringing new liquidity and legitimacy. Through this partnership, Fluid will transition from the retail phase to an institutional phase. It also demonstrates that Fluid is building compliant, institutional crypto infrastructure.
AGI3 Markets
AGI3 Markets will be a fully permissioned instance with KYC/AML checks for capital allocators, borrowers, liquidators, and traders to meet regulatory requirements.
Key Design Components
- Permissioned token lending and borrowing mechanisms
- Permissioned trading mechanism
- Permissioned liquidation workflow
- Integration with permissioned RWA tokens
RWAs under this framework include, but are not limited to:
- Private credit and structured lending
- Tokenized treasuries and sovereign debt
- Commodities (energy, metals, agriculture; physical and derivatives)
- Public equities and equity-linked instruments
- Corporate bonds, structured notes, and credit portfolios
- Any institutionally compliant tokenized real-world assets
Kinetic Group Investment in Fluid
Kinetic Group sees Fluid as the most promising DeFi protocol and is planning to acquire up to 10% of the $FLUID token supply through open-market buys, over-the-counter deals, and other negotiated arrangements. None of these tokens are coming from the DAO treasury or team allocation.
Separately, Fluid Foundation will provide a 5% allocation of the $FLUID tokens for enabling custody within regulated private banks and institutional digital asset custodians in Switzerland, the EU, Hong Kong, and Singapore. These institutions operate under FINMA, MiCA, HKMA, and MAS oversight and meet high standards of asset protection, governance, and operational resilience. This multi-custodian approach signals a true institutional adoption. Additionally, this approach will make $FLUID available for the clients of these financial institutions. These tokens will be legally locked for at least 4 years until 2030.
As part of the strategic partnership, AGI3 will grant Fluid Foundation a 2% equity stake to align incentives and support long-term collaboration. AGI3 equity shares held by Fluid Foundation will be legally locked for at least 4 years until 2030.
RWA Fund Cell
Additionally, as part of our partnership, we are also working on an RWA fund cell, a new product line in partnership with Kinetic. It will be a fully regulated and licensed fund based in the UAE with oversight and risk management from Kinetic. More details will be announced in the future.
Revenue Sharing & Incentive Alignment
The partnership establishes a defined split of ongoing economics between AGI3 and Fluid, distinguishing protocol-native revenue from revenue generated through AGI3’s regulated, off-chain activity. This ensures both parties carry proportional exposure to the value they create.
Revenue
All revenue generated on the AGI3 Markets – including money markets, the DEX, perpetuals, and any other protocol-native revenue line – is split 50/50 between Fluid and AGI3. This applies uniformly across product lines and does not vary by market or jurisdiction. This includes TradFi-originated fees generated through AGI3 Markets regulated entities, custody relationships, or institutional client agreements.
Growth budget
Growth budgets deployed on the AGI3 Markets are funded 50/50 by both parties. Neither party carries the incentive budget unilaterally; contribution levels and deployment criteria for each incentive program will be agreed jointly in advance.
The exact mechanics for calculating, attributing, and settling protocol revenue, non-DeFi revenue, and incentive contributions (reporting frequency, on-chain vs. off-chain attribution, settlement currency and cadence) will be defined in a supplemental commercial agreement between the Fluid Foundation and AGI3.
Accountability, KPIs & Reporting
To align incentives, AGI3 will commit to key performance indicators and transparent reporting:
-
KPIs and Metrics: Examples include the number/value of institutions onboarded (banks, funds, family offices), the number of assets tokenized or under custody, the cumulative USD value of institutional borrowing/lending using AGI3 markets, trading volume in permissioned markets, number of custodial and prime broker partnerships.
-
Reporting Cadence: AGI3 will submit semi-annual ecosystem reports to the Foundation. These will highlight progress on the five strategic pillars (institutional growth, tokenization programs, capital markets development, regulatory engagement, ecosystem partnerships), together with the revenue and incentive split for the period. Reports will include both quantitative metrics (e.g. $ assets tokenized, market volume, revenue split by line) and qualitative updates (e.g. new partnerships, regulatory milestones). Sensitive commercial details (e.g. individual client names, proprietary strategy) can be redacted, but overall performance and major milestones should be shared.
Conclusion
This proposal establishes a long-term strategic partnership between Fluid and AGI3 to accelerate the next phase of institutional DeFi. By combining Fluid’s battle-tested on-chain infrastructure with AGI3’s regulated institutional framework and Kinetic Group’s global network, the partnership creates a pathway for sovereign wealth funds, banks, family offices, asset managers, and other institutional participants to access decentralized finance through compliant, scalable infrastructure.
The proposed investment by Kinetic, the long-term lock-up commitments, mutual equity alignment, shared economics, and transparent accountability framework demonstrate that both parties are committed to building enduring value rather than pursuing short-term incentives. The partnership aligns governance, capital, and execution around a common objective: establishing AGI3 powered by Fluid as the leading institutional DeFi protocol and powering the next generation of tokenized capital markets.
As regulatory clarity and real-world asset tokenization continue to expand globally, this collaboration positions the Fluid ecosystem at the forefront of one of the largest structural shifts in financial markets. Together, Fluid and AGI3 will build the infrastructure that connects traditional finance with decentralized finance, enabling the secure and compliant movement of institutional capital on-chain for years to come.