Ritual, a lab for autonomous intelligence founded by former Polychain Capital partners Niraj Pant and Akilesh Potti, has launched Ritual Chain — an EVM-compatible Layer 1 built for a new kind of software. Unlike conventional blockchains designed primarily to execute financial transactions, Ritual Chain supports software that can independently use intelligence, control capital, interact with external services, and keep operating without constant human intervention. The network makes AI model access, private computation, and autonomous scheduling native capabilities for EVM applications.