Crypto glossary

AI agents in crypto

Definition

AI agents in crypto are programs driven by language models that control a wallet and can trade, pay, post or interact with smart contracts on their own.

An agent combines a model that decides what to do with tools that let it act: a wallet or signing service, connections to exchanges and DeFi protocols, social media accounts and data feeds. Given a goal, it can rebalance a portfolio, claim rewards, pay for an API or reply to users without a human approving each step. Blockchains suit this because a program can hold and move assets without a bank account.

The idea drew attention in late 2024, when chatbot personas with their own accounts and wallets promoted memecoins and the market briefly treated agent-linked tokens as a sector. More practical uses are emerging in wallet automation, trading assistants, on-chain research and payments between software services.

The risks are concrete. Models can be manipulated through prompt injection hidden in messages or web pages, misread instructions or act on false data, and an agent with an unrestricted key can lose everything in one transaction. Many products marketed as agents are scripts with a chat interface. Spending limits, allowlists, session keys and human approval for large actions reduce the damage.

Example

A user gives an agent a smart account with a daily limit of 200 USDC and instructions to buy ETH whenever funding rates turn negative; the agent executes the purchases and logs each decision.

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