New Ethereum Standard Lets AI Agents Run DeFi Trades

ERC-8211, a new Ethereum standard proposed by infrastructure company Biconomy, could fundamentally change how AI agents interact with DeFi — letting them string together complex multi-step transactions without the clunky workarounds developers currently rely on. Introduced on Tuesday, the proposal targets one of the most persistent headaches in decentralized finance: the fact that many transactions depend on outputs nobody can know in advance.

The Problem ERC-8211 Is Trying to Solve

Swap one token for another on-chain and you run into a basic problem immediately. The final amount you receive shifts with price movement and fees, so nobody can tell you exactly what that number will be before the transaction executes. In today's Ethereum batch systems, parameters get locked in before execution even starts — which means developers are stuck either hardcoding values or building ugly hacks to pass outputs from one step to the next.

Ahmed Al-Balaghi, co-founder of Biconomy, put it plainly: "When you have an output from something like a swap, you don't know how much that will be. Developers have to either hard code that or find another way for that output to be used as an input for something else, like a deposit." That friction isn't just annoying. For AI agents trying to autonomously manage DeFi positions, it's a genuine barrier.

ERC-8211 solves this by letting each step in a transaction chain reference the result of the previous one, resolved at actual execution time rather than signing time. The whole flow — withdraw from a lending protocol, swap the exact received amount, deposit into a new protocol — happens inside one signed transaction.

When you have an output from something like a swap, you don't know how much that will be. Developers have to either hard code that or find another way for that output to be used as an input for something else, like a deposit.

What Is Smart Batching and How Does It Work?

Smart batching is the core mechanism behind ERC-8211. Each step in a batched transaction resolves its value at the moment of execution and must satisfy predefined conditions before the next step can proceed. Think of it as conditional chaining — if step one produces less than a minimum threshold, the whole sequence stops rather than silently bleeding funds into a bad trade.

Al-Balaghi was direct about what this means for developers day-to-day: "What we've built lets developers just say: Whatever the balance is of the user, just compose that with the next action. And it's done. That means you can create these really powerful flows without writing new smart contracts. You can just do it in TypeScript." That's not nothing. Dropping the smart contract requirement lowers the bar significantly for teams trying to build agentic DeFi tooling.

The system also bakes in controls over what an agent is actually permitted to do — addressing one of the more legitimate concerns people have about handing DeFi execution over to autonomous software. An AI agent operating under ERC-8211 can be restricted to specific protocols, specific token pairs, or specific maximum amounts, all enforced at the transaction level rather than relying on off-chain guardrails.

An ERC, Not an EIP — Why That Distinction Matters

Al-Balaghi was deliberate in clarifying that ERC-8211 is not an Ethereum Improvement Proposal. ERCs — Ethereum Requests for Comment — define technical rules for how apps and tokens operate on Ethereum without touching the core protocol. EIPs require broader stakeholder consensus and take considerably longer to ship.

"EIPs are still somewhat harder on Ethereum, just because that does need more stakeholders. That's why ERCs exist, because they don't need a protocol change," he said. "If an ERC happens to get a lot of success in terms of adoption and awareness, then either it just stays as an ERC, or it could even be included in the protocol itself."

The practical upshot: teams can adopt smart batching now, on existing Ethereum infrastructure and compatible networks, without waiting for any governance process to complete. That's the move Biconomy is betting on — get enough adoption to make the standard self-reinforcing before anyone asks whether it needs to be formalized.

Does This Change Anything for AI Agents in Crypto?

Barnabé Monnot, a research scientist at the Ethereum Foundation, confirmed the Foundation is actively backing the proposal. "The protocol cluster of the Ethereum Foundation has 'Improve UX' as one of its strategic priorities," he said. "ERC-8211 support is coming from this strategic priority." Monnot noted the collaboration started at a workshop the Foundation organized in 2025 focused on improving UX, and that the agentic execution angle emerged more recently, driven by how fast AI agents have been developing.

"The agentic execution angle is new, but has imposed itself given the rapid developments of agents over the last three months," Monnot said. "It's a perfect use case since agents can orchestrate complex cross-chain interactions, and ERC-8211 gives them the right platform to do so."

This isn't happening in isolation. MoonPay launched an open-source wallet standard for AI agents earlier this week — the Open Wallet Standard — with backing from PayPal, the Ethereum Foundation, Solana Foundation, Ripple, OKX, Tron, TON Foundation, and Base. Vitalik Buterin also published a blog post on Wednesday about his own AI setup, describing an architecture where agents cannot move funds or send messages without human sign-off. "The new two-factor authentication is the human and the LLM," he wrote. The broader push is unmistakable: 2026 is shaping up as the year the crypto-AI stack starts getting serious infrastructure underneath it.

Al-Balaghi had notably warmer words for the Ethereum Foundation than has been common in builder circles over the past few years. "I think the Ethereum Foundation — they're way more willing to win. Seeing that level of interactivity, that more competitive nature, wanting things to get done quicker, and being willing to work with the ecosystem is very promising compared to what it was just two years ago." Whether that's genuine progress or a foundation doing outreach because it's lost ground — call it what you want. But a builder-facing standard moving this fast, with Foundation backing, is not what Ethereum critics expected to be writing about this quarter.

The new two-factor authentication is the human and the LLM.