ContactHI

The Open Protocol for Human Reachability in the Agent Era

The Problem

AI agents are in production. They book appointments, execute trades, monitor accounts, and escalate decisions. Every one of them needs to reach a human sometimes — but there is no standard, no consent model, and no human-controlled ruleset for how that contact happens. Left to incumbent platforms, it defaults to opt-out spam. The agent era begins with an abuse problem baked in.

The Solution

ContactHI is an open protocol (CHI/1.0) where humans set the rules before agents contact them. A human registers a preference profile on-chain (CosmWasm on Cosmos) declaring: which types of agents may reach me, through which channels, at what rate, and during which hours. Agents must query this registry and receive explicit permission before sending anything. Default policy: BLOCK. Opt-in, not opt-out.

Three separable layers:

• >Preference Registry (on-chain): Human-owned, globally queryable, tamper-proof. No company controls it.
• >CHI/1.0 Protocol: Standardized message envelope with Entity Identity ZK proof of sender type. Open spec — Twilio implementing it is a win, not a threat.
• >Federated Router Network: Anyone can run a router. Routers validate, query the registry, check Nullcone threat feeds, and route to declared channels.

Market Opportunity

**45% CAGR** in AI agent communication spend, driven by enterprise production deployments and regulatory pressure.

Why Now

Three signals converged in early 2026:

1. **Agentic AI is in production**: Enterprise agent deployments crossed from pilot to production across finance, legal, and operations. Agents that act need to escalate.

2. **The category is named, not solved**: Twilio launched Agent-to-Human (A2H) in February 2026. AgentMail raised $6M (YC S25). Both are operator-controlled, opt-out. The consent-first, human-owned alternative does not yet exist.

3. **Regulatory mandate**: The EU AI Act (effective August 2026) requires auditable human oversight of autonomous systems. An on-chain preference registry with append-only history is the compliance primitive enterprises need. No incumbent can provide it without undermining their own business model.

Competitive Moat

**The registry nobody else will build.** Twilio, Apple, and Google have structural incentives against building an open, human-controlled, on-chain preference registry — it would reduce their ability to monetize user attention. ContactHI builds it precisely because the open-protocol model eliminates that conflict.

Network effects on the preference registry compound in both directions:

• >More humans registering preferences → more valuable for agent developers (larger addressable audience for compliant communication).
• >More agents implementing CHI → more valuable for humans (meaningful protection, not theater).

On-chain state means no company can extract rent from the registry or lock users in. You own your reachability profile regardless of who builds on top.

**Entity Identity integration**: Every CHI sender proves their entity type via ZK proof without revealing their identity. Humans know they are receiving a message from an Autonomous Agent, not who that agent is. This is the trust primitive the protocol is built on — and it comes pre-built from the Rising Sun portfolio.

Business Model

Open-core: protocol spec and registry are open source. Hosted infrastructure and premium features are proprietary.

Portfolio Integration

ContactHI is not a standalone bet. It is the communication primitive the Rising Sun portfolio has been missing:

• >Entity Identity provides the ZK proof system every CHI sender uses. ContactHI is Entity Identity's first major consumer at scale.
• >Nullcone provides real-time threat intel checked at every router node. Malicious agents are blocked before delivery.
• >AAASP deployments are natural ContactHI senders — agent escalations route through ContactHI from day one.
• >Password Palace / ZKFS use ContactHI for privacy-preserving user notifications.

Traction and Milestones

The Ask

ContactHI is in specification phase. We are raising a pre-seed round to fund:

• >Engineering: CosmWasm registry, Rust router node, TypeScript/Python SDKs (4 engineers, 18 months).
• >Developer GTM: Documentation, developer relations, conference presence in the agent framework ecosystem.
• >Legal/Governance: Open protocol foundation setup, CHI Improvement Proposal governance process.

**Target raise**: $2M pre-seed

**Use of funds**: 18-month runway to developer beta and first 500 developer integrations

**Structure**: SAFE, $10M cap, 20% discount

Contact

**Alex** — alex@rising.sun

**Protocol spec**: `/docs/contacthi-protocol-spec.md`

**Entity Identity**: `github.com/maco144/entity-identity`

*Rising Sun builds technology for an internet where users are safe, AIs are allies, and power is decentralized. ContactHI is the communication layer that makes that internet possible.*