The intersection of AI and blockchain is a topic of considerable controversy, as experts debate the extent to which AI agents should have control over crypto wallets.
The recent upgrades to Payment Model Context Protocol (MCP), announced by companies like Coinbase and Circle, enable the use of Agentic AI to access crypto wallets to pay for, compute, and manage assets and businesses, all through the x402 protocol.
“It marks a new phase of Agentic commerce where AI agents can act in the global economy,” the Coinbase Development platform said in a report.
CoinGecko reported, as per their survey, most users are comfortable with AI trading on their behalf, managing at least a tenth of their crypto portfolio. Over 2,600 crypto users participated in the survey, and the result showed 87% of users would want AI agents to handle at least 10% of their portfolio.
Is Agentic AI truly safe?
Despite the added advantages that are embraced by the investors and traders, McKinsey & Company, a global management consultancy, stated in a report that Agentic AI has the potential to deliver value, but with ‘an array of new risks’, which could disrupt operations, compromise sensitive data, or break customer trust.
Without human oversight, the internal and external risks of hackers and dangerous agents also raise concerns. McKinsey describes them as ‘digital insiders’ who operate within the system, enjoying a certain degree of access and authority.
Aaron Ratcliff, attribution lead at Merkle Science, called this integration a ‘paradox,’ saying, “You’re adding trust to something that was designed to be trustless,” while emphasizing that the security behind Agentic AI is based on how the system is built and used.
Users’ views on AI managing crypto wallets
User observation and opinions mostly revolve around how AI could read through charts to provide insights and observations to choose their next best investments. Some said “AI agents” portfolio managers are fake, calling them misleading, arguing that traders should quit if they want AI to do it for them.
Coinbase’s tweet on X (formerly Twitter) about the Payment MCP also witnessed mixed responses, with alternatives to the service; however, the crypto community seems excited to see the future of financing.
AI agents could add a safety layer
Ratcliff added that bad actors could exploit vulnerabilities if AI is being used in a portfolio, as it works on prompts and instructions, heightening security risks.
“The AI might also interact with scam tokens, miss honeypots or rug-pulls, or handle slippage so poorly it burns users’ funds,” Ratcliff added.
“They essentially act as a gatekeeper between the AI model and your wallet. The agent can only perform specific, approved actions, such as checking balances or preparing a payment for you to confirm, rather than freely moving funds or changing wallet settings,” Sean Ren, co-founder of the AI-native blockchain platform Sahara AI, said to the media while commenting on the Payment MCP by Coinbase.
However, the idea is not for AI agents to take over your crypto wallets, but to rebalance the interactions between the user and AI in the crypto space.
