The next big development in cryptocurrency focuses on autonomous financial agents rather than just new currencies or trading platforms.
These are computer programs that can manage finances and complete transactions without human guidance.
The central thesis of this week’s Hong Kong Web3 Festival was that a significant shift in the industry is underway.
Authorities and leaders discussed a future where AI bots independently manage and complete cryptocurrency transactions.
These agents are able to assess a situation, make a decision and act without any assistance.
In the field of cryptocurrency, people live on blockchains and are busy day and night with trading, token purchases and money lending.
The industry figures at the festival believe that these programs could soon rule large parts of the digital economy under the control of no one else, just the rules written into the code.
Banks are not ready for what is to come
The figures behind AI expenditure give an idea of how quickly this is happening.
Global investment in artificial intelligence is expected to reach $2.52 trillion by 2026, and in the first quarter of this year alone, AI attracted 80% of all venture capital funding worldwide.
On Binance Ai Pro, a trading platform, almost half of all activity now happens without any input from users; the system carries out the calls itself.
OKX Global Chief Commercial Officer Lennix Lai told the conference that the way people interact with blockchain “will likely change indefinitely.” Fan Wenzhong, a leader in the financial world, agreed that an economy run by automated agents is coming.
However, he said the true power of AI is still held back by a “glass hood.” He explained that this is because current banks are not made for this type of technology.
Traditional monetary systems rely on physical accounts, people checking things by hand, and middlemen.
These systems are designed for large transactions that happen every now and then and that people need to watch over.
They are not built to perform the very fast, small, and automatic tasks that AI agents perform.
Blockchain, proponents claim, solves that problem. The code runs automatically and cannot be changed once set up, eliminating the need for an intermediary.
The consulting firm McKinsey estimates that AI agents could move between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in consumer commerce around the world every year by 2030.
To put that into context, the entire crypto market is valued at around $2 trillion today.
From person-to-person deals to machine-to-machine transactions
A report released at the festival by Dr. Xiao Feng, chairman and CEO of HashKey Group, explained how this shift could work.
The report argues that AI agents are already engaged in production, trade and collaboration, and economic activity is gradually moving from face-to-face interaction to human-machine, or machine-only, deals.
The report also introduced what it calls a Dual-Token Architecture: AI tokens, which measure computing power used, and Blockchain tokens, which track the flow of value.
Blockchain also solves a trust problem.
Every action taken by an agent is permanently recorded on the blockchain, creating a clear trail. With the artificial AI market expected to grow from $5.25 billion in 2024 to nearly $200 billion by 2034, tracking these programs becomes critical.
JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon recently acknowledged that blockchain is no longer experimental, pointing to tokenization and smart contracts as signs that the financial sector is moving on-chain.
Some projects are already live.
Fetch.ai and SingularityNET allow agents to exchange services with each other. Autonolas helps agents execute strategies in decentralized finance.
Obstacles such as speed, safety and regulation remain. Layer 2 networks such as Optimism and Arbitrum are working on faster processing and use zero-knowledge proofs to improve privacy.
Analysts believe that by the end of this decade, AI agents could be as routine as smartphone apps, performing tasks that humans currently do themselves and opening the door to a much larger crypto economy.