AI Agents Drive DeFi Growth, But Wallet Infrastructure Lags

AI agents are increasingly becoming essential infrastructure for decentralized finance (DeFi) as they manage liquidity, optimize yield, and execute trades around the clock. However, the current wallet infrastructure, which predominantly relies on externally owned account wallets requiring manual approvals, is struggling to keep up with the advancements in AI agents.

While there have been advancements in account abstraction and smart contract wallets, these solutions remain fragmented, costly on layer-1 networks, and adopted by only a small fraction of users. This limitation becomes critical as AI agents increasingly operate in DeFi, necessitating standardized infrastructure that allows for secure, cost-effective automation with verifiable guardrails across multiple blockchain ecosystems.

The rise of autonomous agents opens new possibilities such as hands-free DeFi strategies, real-time portfolio optimization, and cross-chain arbitrage. However, without programmable permissions and on-chain visibility, delegating control to AI can expose users to catastrophic risk. Malicious bots, hallucinating agents, and poorly designed automation can drain wallets before a human notices.

Recent incidents, such as the loss of 563 Ether (approximately $1.9 million) through an exploited oracle vulnerability in the Telegram-based trading bot Banana Gun, and the breach of Aixbt’s dashboard resulting in the loss of 55.5 ETH worth over $100,000, highlight the systemic vulnerability in the current automation infrastructure.

Despite years of wallet innovation, the architecture remains static, mainly involving signing a transaction, broadcasting it, and repeating the process. Most wallets aren’t built to understand “intent,” verify that automation matches user-defined rules, or restrict activity by time, asset type, or strategy. This rigidity creates an all-or-nothing dynamic, where users must choose between maintaining manual control and missing out on fast-moving opportunities or handing over access entirely to opaque third-party systems.

For AI-powered DeFi to scale securely and build more utility, programmable, composable, and verifiable infrastructure is needed. This includes enabling session-based permissions, cryptographic verification of agent actions, and the ability to revoke access in real-time. With these features in place, users can delegate trading, rebalancing, or strategy execution without giving up complete control, mitigating risk and expanding access to advanced DeFi strategies for users without technical knowledge.

Programmable wallet infrastructure not only makes DeFi safer but also more scalable. Fragmentation across chains and protocols has long been a barrier to automated strategies. A universal keystore protocol that syncs permissions across networks can streamline cross-chain delegation and open the door for interoperable agent ecosystems. As institutional interest in DeFi grows, secure automation will be non-negotiable, with most firms requiring verifiable guardrails for AI agents to interact with capital.

While some may argue that AI cannot be trusted with financial autonomy, traditional markets have already adopted algorithmic trading and black box automation. DeFi is not immune to this trend; it is simply unprepared. To maintain its transparency and user sovereignty principles, DeFi must build infrastructure that keeps AI agents in check. This starts with rebuilding wallets as interfaces and operating systems for the autonomous, multichain economy.

DeFi is on the edge of an automation revolution. The question is not whether agents will participate but whether we give them the rails they need to act in service of users, not in spite of them.