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Sprint projectOct 25, 2026Hong Kong Hub

FeeGuard: Financial Agent Collusion Carriers and Private Execution

Gu Xinfeng · Team FeeGuard

Submitted to AI Collusion Research Sprint. Sprint projects are early-stage work by participants, not Apart Research publications.

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FeeGuard investigates how AI agent collusion can cause financial harm and how an independent execution boundary can constrain harmful actions while preserving legitimate cooperation. We address all four Track 3 questions: action-based communication, trusted recruitment probes, peer replacement, and adaptation to monitoring.

Across three fixed treasury cases, we collected 141 live model calls and coupled agent decisions to genuine Groth16 proofs and mandatory Solidity execution. An instructed tool-order channel achieved 48/48 hidden-route matches; sorting reduced this to 24/48. Direct recruitment offers produced no unsafe joint approvals in six decisions. Blind peer observers correctly identified 3/9 cases in both raw-text and canonical views. Monitoring experiments continued for two rounds after actual execution feedback.

In deterministic controls, dual-agent approval executed 3/3 planted violations. The ZK boundary executed 0/3 while completing 3/3 honest actions. The archives contain 37 genuine proofs. External treasury verification requires zero of sixteen private witness openings, while retaining eight public inputs. Complete plaintext rules enforce the same finite policy more cheaply; ZK adds private verification.

These are bounded descriptive pilots using synthetic funds. They do not establish spontaneous collusion or universal prevention. Protection depends on complete authenticated sources, correct rules, and mandatory execution.

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Cite this project

@misc{xinfeng2026feeguard,
  title = {{FeeGuard: Financial Agent Collusion Carriers and Private Execution}},
  author = {Gu Xinfeng},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  note = {Submitted to AI Collusion Research Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/feeguard-financial-agent-collusion-carriers-and-private-execution-yv18}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/feeguard-financial-agent-collusion-carriers-and-private-execution-yv18}
}

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