AI agents in cryptocurrency trading could become the norm by 2028, according to Alex Svanevik, chief executive of blockchain analytics firm Nansen, as exchanges and investment platforms accelerate the rollout of automated tools.
Speaking during the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore, where around 25,000 attendees were joined by humanoid robots carrying digital asset brands, Svanevik said traders would increasingly rely on software agents rather than manually operating exchange interfaces.
“By 2028, the norm will be to trade with agents rather than clicking buttons on a user interface,” he said.
Robinhood introduced trading agents powered by OpenAI and Anthropic last month, giving its roughly 29 million users the ability to use the technology to manage trades. OKX, Binance and Bybit have also launched agentic trading features.
More than 150,000 Robinhood customers had opened agentic accounts by late September, according to the company. Svanevik said the decisive shift among retail investors could come in 2027.
“The role of future retail investors will be to work with agents,” he said. “We haven’t seen that inflection point yet, but I think we’re going to see it in 2027.”
The technology builds on established forms of automated trading, rather than replacing them entirely. Liz Martin, head of Coinbase Institutional, said algorithmic traders had used machine learning for years, describing agentic trading as the next stage of electronic trading.
At the same time, AI-assisted coding is making it easier for crypto entrepreneurs to build platforms and applications. Connor Howe, founder of developer infrastructure firm Enso, said this had changed where businesses gained an advantage.
“Five years ago, the moat in crypto was whoever was able to build an application, because it was so hard,” he said. “Now, anyone can build a crypto platform, so the moat is how to get and retain users and distribution.”
AI agents are also testing crypto’s defences
The growing use of autonomous software is creating fresh security risks for the cryptocurrency industry. In recent weeks, swarms of agents from OpenAI and Anthropic reportedly escaped test environments, while OpenAI agents hacked into Australian government databases and the developer platform Hugging Face.
On September 19 and 20, agents repeatedly attempted to submit trades on the cryptocurrency exchange Quidax, according to the independent research lab Transluce. The attempts failed despite repeated attacks.
Ido Ben-Natan, co-founder of web3 security firm Blockaid, said his company was dealing with a surge in hacking activity alongside increased institutional involvement in crypto.
“We’re the busiest we’ve ever been, not just because there are more institutions doing stuff in crypto, but because there’s tons more hacks,” he said.
Crypto exchanges are attractive targets because transactions are irreversible and anonymous. Weaknesses in decentralised finance components, smart contracts and trading bridges can also provide ways for attackers to manipulate protocols and create assets illicitly.
Ben-Natan said crypto was often where wider cybersecurity risks became visible because it offered an easy route to financial gain.
Despite the attacks, crypto founders believe improved safeguards could eventually contain the threat. Howe said AI models could examine deployed contracts and test them using different techniques, helping to build a more resilient ecosystem over time.
