Agentic Finance: How AI agents are shaping DeFi

The intersection of artificial intelligence and decentralized finance is giving rise to a new paradigm: agentic finance. As AI agents become more sophisticated, they're not just analyzing financial data – they're actively participating in DeFi protocols, executing trades, managing liquidity positions, and even developing new financial strategies autonomously.

In this article, we’ll dive into what agentic finance is and what it means for DeFi, what the advantages are for DeFi companies and AI agents, and how to build DeFAI (DeFi + AI) agents, launchpads and platforms.

What is Agentic Finance?

Agentic finance refers to the use of autonomous AI agents to participate in financial markets. These agents go beyond traditional algorithmic trading by incorporating advanced machine learning capabilities, natural language processing, and adaptive decision-making. Unlike rigid programmatic rules, agentic systems can:

• Analyze market sentiment across multiple data sources
• Adapt strategies based on changing market conditions
• Interact with smart contracts and DeFi protocols autonomously
• Learn from past transactions and optimize for better outcomes

What does this mean for DeFi?

The integration of AI agents into DeFi aren’t just a fancy new feature - they are rewiring the entire system from the ground up in many ways:

• Enhanced Market Efficiency: AI agents can identify and exploit price discrepancies across DEXs much faster than human traders, leading to more efficient markets.
• Improved Risk Management: Agents can monitor multiple risk factors simultaneously and adjust positions in real-time to protect against adverse market movements.
• Democratized Access: Complex trading strategies once reserved for sophisticated institutions are becoming accessible to retail investors through AI-powered DeFi agents, launchpads and platforms.
• Novel Financial Products: AI agents are enabling new types of financial instruments and services that weren't possible with traditional automation.

Opportunities for AI Agent Developers in DeFi

The best part about being an AI agent developer in DeFi right now isn't just the technology - it's the unprecedented freedom to experiment. Here's what that means in practice:

• Rich Data Environment: All blockchain transactions and smart contract interactions are publicly available, providing comprehensive datasets for training and improving AI models.
• Permissionless Testing: The open nature of DeFi protocols allows developers to deploy and iterate on AI agents without requiring institutional partnerships or approvals.
• Protocol Composability: Developers can create agents that interact with multiple DeFi protocols simultaneously, enabling complex trading and investment strategies.
• Monetization Potential: Developers can generate revenue through protocol fees, token rewards, and by licensing their agent technology to DeFi platforms.

Building for Agentic Finance and DeFi

To build an AI agent that can transact on DeFi rails, developers can use open source plug-in libraries like GOAT SDK to connect their AI agent to more than 200 onchain tools like Uniswap, Jupiter, Orca and many other DeFi protocols - significantly reducing the time it takes to launch.

GOAT SDK is the most downloaded (>100k downloads to date) library for agents to interact with blockchain protocols and works with:

• Most popular AI agent frameworks like AI SDK, Langchain, Eliza, ZerePy, GAME by Virtuals, and ElevenLabs
• Chains including EVM (Base, Polygon, Mode, Sei) as well as Solana, Aptos, Chromia, Fuel, Sui, Starknet, Zilliqa and more
• Other tools such as minting (OpenSea, MagicEden), betting (Polymarket) and analytics (CoinGecko, BirdEye, Allora)

If you’re interested in creating a new plug-in for GOAT SDK, head on over to the GOAT SDK Github to create one!

Building with Crossmint Agent Wallets

AI agent launchpads and platforms that enable anyone to build a DeFAI (DeFi + AI) agent need to implement a dual key wallet architecture or else they are at risk of creating a massive honeypot that hackers can attack.

At Crossmint, we’ve launched Agent Wallets to allow developers building with a dual key wallet architecture to launch AI agent platforms and launchpads that can scale reliably to millions of users. They are fully non-custodial, which means:

• Crossmint never has access to your agents’ wallets
• Launchpads never have access to their agents’ wallets
• Keys stay completely private
• Agent platforms cannot be considered to control the wallet

Getting started with Crossmint Agent Wallets is simple:

• One line of code to create agent wallets
• Fork the Agent Launchpad Starter Kit

If you’re interested in building with Crossmint Agent Wallets, reach out to our sales team!