Phase appoints former Cointelegraph CEO Yana Prikhodchenko as co-founder and CEO

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Phase appoints former Cointelegraph CEO Yana Prikhodchenko as co-founder and CEO following its Layer 1 mainnet and AI agent services launch, supported by $45 million in founder funding.

SAN FRANCISCO, November 11, 2026 — Phase named Yana Prikhodchenko co-founder and CEO to lead strategy, global expansion and commercial development alongside founder Kirill Eves as the company scales decentralized infrastructure for autonomous AI agents. Prikhodchenko previously led Cointelegraph for nearly five years, overseeing a 200-plus global team and expanding into media, marketing, research, acceleration and events. She earlier held senior roles in banking and insurance, including at Allianz.

Phase platform and network

Phase builds an operating layer for the AI agent economy: web access, AI model orchestration, computing and payments. Its services run on a proprietary Layer 1 blockchain powered by a decentralized network of everyday devices. Device owners validate transactions and contribute connectivity and compute, earning rewards.

Core services:

Phase Proxy: enables AI agents to access sites that limit automated traffic via mobile and residential connections.
Phase Router: directs requests across leading AI models to optimize quality, performance and cost.
Phase Compute: uses distributed device processing to run open-weight AI models.
On-chain settlement: supports autonomous payments with stablecoins and PHASE, the native token.

Phase is developing an in-house AI model to act as the platform’s central intelligence with advanced reasoning, independent task execution and orchestration of other models.

Network design and participation

Validators can join by downloading an app. No specialized hardware or upfront token staking is required. A reputation-based consensus and randomized validator selection secure the network and reduce concentration risk. Rewards: PHASE tokens for block validation and for contributing connectivity and compute.

Funding

Funding: $45 million provided by founder Kirill Eves.

Leadership focus

Prikhodchenko’s mandate: bring Phase’s infrastructure to developers and enterprises and scale the ecosystem for autonomous AI agents. Eves stated she will lead commercial development and global expansion as technology reaches market.