Imagine your investments working around the clock, scanning global markets for the best opportunities

In the realm of finance, change is often a slow dance. But in the sphere of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi), the music plays fast, and the steps are bold.

This year, we'll see a 20% surge in cross-chain transactions, while the number of AI agents catering to various financial services will swell from 10,000 to over a million by the end of 2025, according to VanEck.

Meanwhile, TradFi algorithms already handle nearly 70% of U.S. stock trades.

This isn't science fiction; it's the new frontier of finance.

But can we really trust AI with billions of dollars?

Autonomous finance isn't new, but today's AI agents operate with increased autonomy and sophistication. They're capable of analyzing market trends, balancing portfolios and managing liquidity across platforms like SaucerSwap and Uniswap.

However, concerns arise when algorithms, not humans, make critical decisions. Who would be held responsible for market manipulation performed by an agent?

These worries are valid. As AI agents take on more responsibility, and especially as the convergence between crypto and TradFi accelerates, worries around transparency and market manipulation will grow.

For instance, some blockchains enable front running trades and sandwich attacks that can exploit blockchain consensus in a process known as Maximal Extractable Value (MEV). These transaction strategies harm fairness and market trust.

Operating at machine speed, AI agents could supercharge these risks.

But there's a crucial layer that can bind trust and prevent chaos.

Enter DLT: the trust layer we need

Trust is paramount, and distributed ledger technology (DLT) offers the solution. DLT provides real-time transparency, immutability and decentralized consensus, ensuring decisions are trackable and auditable.

The Identity Management Institute reported companies that integrated blockchain identity systems have already cut fraud by 40% and identity theft by 50%. Applying these guardrails to AI-driven finance can counter manipulation and promote fairness.

Moreover, the use of DLTs with fair ordering is growing rapidly, ensuring transactions are sequenced fairly and unpredictably, addressing MEV concerns and promoting trust in decentralized systems.

DeFAI: where finance is headed

A blockchain-powered, trust-centric model could unlock a new paradigm, “DeFAI”, in which autonomous agents can operate freely without sacrificing oversight.

Open-source protocols like ElizaOS, which have blockchain plugins, are already enabling secure and compliant AI interactions between agents across DeFi ecosystems.

Bottom line: trust will define the future of AI

As AI agents take on more complex roles, verifiable trust becomes non-negotiable. Verifiable compute solutions are already being built by firms like EQTY Lab, Intel and Nvidia to anchor trust on-chain.

DLT ensures transparency, accountability and traceability. This is already in motion; on-chain agents are now operating that offer services ranging from trade execution to predictive analytics. We can trust AI when we have trust in the model input and output.

The question now isn't if institutions will adopt autonomous finance, but whether frameworks can evolve fast enough. For this revolution to thrive, trust must be embedded into the foundation of the system.