Artificial intelligence was everywhere at last week's TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore. Humanoid robots wearing the logos of digital asset platforms mixed with 25,000 attendees. The message from the event was clear: AI is no longer a side topic in crypto — it is becoming the main event.
The biggest shift being discussed was not robots, but trading agents. These are AI systems that can manage trades for users instead of people clicking buttons on an app. Crypto founders at the conference said this change is coming fast, and they are both excited and nervous about it.
AI Trading Agents Will Become the Norm by 2028
The boldest prediction came from Alex Svanevik, CEO of blockchain analytics platform Nansen. He told Fortune on the sidelines of the event that human traders will soon be the minority.
"By 2028, the norm will be to trade with agents rather than clicking buttons on a user interface." — Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen, via Fortune
This is not just talk. Major trading platforms have already started rolling out agentic trading features. Robinhood launched trading agents powered by OpenAI and Anthropic, giving its roughly 29 million users a way to let AI manage their trades. Exchanges like OKX, Binance, and Bybit have also introduced similar agentic trading tools.
Why Crypto Founders Are Both Excited and Worried
The excitement is easy to understand. AI agents can watch markets all day, react faster than humans, and remove the need for constant manual input. For busy users, that sounds like a big upgrade.
But the fear is real too. If most trading is done by machines, humans may lose control over what happens in the market. Agents could make fast decisions that users do not fully understand. And when many agents act at once, the results could be hard to predict.
The presence of humanoid robots at TOKEN2049, carrying the logos of digital asset platforms, showed how central AI has become to the industry's image. But the real story is not the robots on the floor — it is the agents quietly moving into trading apps.
Our Take: A Big Change With Big Risks
In our view, the move toward AI trading agents is not a small feature update. It is a fundamental change in how crypto markets will work. If Svanevik's prediction holds, the average user will stop placing trades and start supervising agents instead.
That sounds convenient, but it also raises hard questions. Who is responsible when an agent makes a bad trade? Do users understand what these systems are doing with their money? And if everyone uses similar AI tools, could markets become more fragile, not less?
To put it plainly, crypto founders are right to be excited — and right to be afraid. The technology is moving faster than the rules and safeguards around it. For regular users, the message is simple: before you hand your trades to an agent, make sure you understand what it can do, and what it can get wrong.
The age of agentic trading is coming. Whether it makes crypto safer or riskier depends on how carefully the industry handles it.
