Blockchain analytics firm Nansen has predicted that by 2028, the default way most people invest in crypto will not be through picking tokens or reading charts, but through autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents operating on their behalf. The prediction, shared by Nansen on X, draws a direct parallel to one of the most consequential shifts in software engineering: the move from writing code manually to building automated loops, quality gates, and deployment pipelines. Nansen argues that investing is on the verge of the same structural transformation.
From Manual to Agent-Driven
Applied to crypto investing, that means an agent could monitor market conditions, manage risk parameters, execute trades, rebalance portfolios, and interact with decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols around the clock, without any manual input. Nansen envisions billions of such agents active by 2028, each representing an individual investor, institution, or protocol, all operating within automated decision frameworks they set and adjust over time.
The comparison to software engineering is instructive. Just a decade ago, most development teams wrote and deployed code through largely manual processes. Today, continuous integration, automated testing, and deployment pipelines handle the majority of that work autonomously. Nansen argues that portfolio management is about to undergo an equivalent transformation, on a compressed timeline driven by rapid advancements in large language models and on-chain automation tools.
What Agent-Driven Investing Means for Crypto Markets
If Nansen’s timeline proves accurate, the implications for existing crypto market structures are significant. Agent-driven investing at scale could reshape liquidity dynamics and alter trading microstructure across both centralized and decentralized venues. It could also put pressure on exchanges and DeFi protocols to build infrastructure capable of handling high-frequency autonomous activity.
Automated market participants are not new to crypto—trading bots have operated on exchanges for years. But the agent paradigm Nansen describes is qualitatively different. These are not simple rule-based programs executing buy and sell orders based on price thresholds, but goal-directed systems capable of reasoning across multiple data inputs and executing complex multi-step strategies across DeFi protocols, centralized exchanges, and on-chain positions simultaneously.
Nansen is not the only voice forecasting AI-agent dominance in investing. But as one of the most-cited analytics platforms in crypto, its public endorsement of a 2028 timeline carries unusual credibility. Whether that specific date holds or not, the move towards agentic everything seems to be clear.