Blockchain analytics firm Nansen says the default way people invest in crypto may change dramatically by 2028: instead of picking tokens, reading charts, and manually managing positions, investors could rely on autonomous AI agents acting on their behalf. The forecast points to a structural shift in how capital is deployed across digital asset markets, especially in decentralized finance, where automated systems can already interact directly with protocols, rebalance portfolios, and execute trades around the clock.
From Manual Investing to Agent-Driven Execution
Nansen framed its prediction by comparing the coming change in investing to a major transition in software engineering. A decade ago, many development teams still handled coding, testing, and deployment through heavily manual workflows. Over time, those processes were transformed by continuous integration systems, automated testing, quality gates, and deployment pipelines. Nansen argues that investing may now be heading toward a similar outcome, only on a faster timeline because of rapid progress in large language models and on-chain automation tools.
Under this model, an AI agent would not merely place isolated trades. It could continuously monitor market conditions, adjust risk settings, rebalance a portfolio, move liquidity between strategies, and interact with DeFi protocols without constant user intervention. In practice, that would shift crypto investing away from a trader-centric experience and toward a system in which the investor sets objectives and constraints while software handles execution.
Nansen’s projection goes further than incremental automation. The firm envisions billions of AI agents active by 2028, each representing an individual investor, an institution, or even a protocol. These agents would operate within decision frameworks defined by their users and refined over time, effectively becoming the operational layer between investors and markets.
Why This Matters for Crypto Market Structure
If that timeline proves accurate, the consequences for crypto market structure could be substantial. Agent-driven investing at scale would likely reshape how liquidity moves across DeFi markets and could also alter trading behavior in both centralized and decentralized venues. Exchanges and on-chain protocols may need to upgrade infrastructure to support much higher levels of autonomous activity, especially if these systems begin operating continuously at machine speed.
This is where Nansen’s argument becomes more significant than a simple forecast about better trading bots. Crypto markets have long been familiar with automation. Bots already execute orders on exchanges, market makers rely on algorithmic systems, and many DeFi strategies are semi-automated. But Nansen draws a distinction between traditional rule-based bots and the next generation of agentic systems.
A conventional trading bot usually follows predefined conditions: buy at one level, sell at another, or rebalance according to a fixed schedule. The AI agents described by Nansen are qualitatively different. They are portrayed as goal-oriented systems capable of reasoning across multiple inputs and carrying out multi-step strategies across DeFi protocols, centralized exchanges, and on-chain positions simultaneously. That would make them less like scripts and more like autonomous financial operators working within user-defined mandates.
Beyond Bots: A More Complex Autonomous Layer
Nansen’s thesis suggests that crypto investing could move from interface-driven participation to delegation-driven participation. Instead of opening several apps, comparing token charts, checking yields, monitoring volatility, and manually rotating positions, users may increasingly instruct agents to optimize for specific outcomes such as risk-adjusted return, stable yield, exposure limits, or capital preservation.
That transition could have broad implications for market behavior. If large numbers of agents begin making decisions based on overlapping data sources, reacting to common on-chain signals, or pursuing similar optimization targets, liquidity patterns may become more dynamic and more concentrated around machine-readable opportunities. DeFi protocols could see faster reallocations of capital, while centralized exchanges may face pressure to accommodate more sophisticated and more frequent programmatic flows.
Nansen specifically argues that this change could fundamentally reshape liquidity movement across DeFi markets. In decentralized finance, where smart contracts already allow composability and permissionless execution, AI agents may find a particularly natural environment. The ability to interact directly with lending markets, automated market makers, derivatives platforms, and staking systems gives autonomous strategies a much wider field of action than in many traditional financial settings.
Infrastructure Pressure Could Follow
Another major implication of Nansen’s view is that market infrastructure may need to evolve quickly. If agent-driven systems become far more common, both exchanges and DeFi platforms may need to support higher-frequency autonomous interactions, more complex transaction flows, and more persistent strategy execution. In that world, speed, reliability, and execution tooling become even more important because the end user is no longer manually clicking through decisions.
The operational demands could extend beyond throughput. Protocols may also need to think more carefully about how their products are accessed by software-first users. Interfaces designed for humans may become less important than APIs, automation hooks, and logic pathways optimized for autonomous systems. If agents become a dominant source of activity, the platforms that best accommodate them could gain a structural advantage.
Nansen’s View Carries Weight in the Sector
Nansen is not the only voice arguing that AI agents will play a larger role in investing. Still, its forecast has drawn attention because of the firm’s standing as one of the more widely cited analytics platforms in crypto. A public endorsement of a 2028 timeline from a recognized industry data provider gives the discussion added credibility, even if the exact date remains uncertain.
That caveat matters. Forecasts about emerging technologies are inherently difficult to validate on a fixed schedule, especially in markets as volatile and experimental as crypto. Adoption depends on user trust, infrastructure readiness, product reliability, and the ability of autonomous systems to manage risk in real market conditions. But Nansen’s core argument is less about one calendar year than about direction: investing is becoming increasingly agentic.
Whether or not billions of agents are active by 2028, the trend outlined by Nansen points to a future in which AI is embedded more deeply into execution, portfolio management, and protocol interaction. If that happens, crypto may serve as one of the earliest large-scale proving grounds for autonomous financial agents, precisely because it combines programmable assets, open infrastructure, and markets that already operate on a 24/7 basis.