Nansen Forecasts Billions of AI Crypto Agents by 2028

Nansen forecasts that by 2028 billions of autonomous artificial intelligence agents will manage crypto investments and change liquidity patterns in decentralized finance markets.

The firm says the agents would act for individual investors, institutions and protocols to monitor markets, manage risk and execute trades without manual input. Nansen describes agents that continuously assess market conditions, adjust risk parameters, rebalance portfolios and carry out multi-step strategies across decentralized protocols and centralized exchanges.

Nansen posted the forecast on its social channels and compared the shift to the software industry’s move from manual coding to automated build, test and deployment pipelines. The firm links the timeline to rapid improvements in large language models and the growth of on-chain automation tools that allow programs to interact directly with blockchain protocols.

The firm projects the scale of activity — billions of agents by 2028 — would change how liquidity flows in DeFi and affect trading microstructure on both centralized and decentralized venues. Exchanges and protocol operators may need faster transaction handling, stronger protection against front-running and new controls for automated interactions to handle high volumes of autonomous activity.

Automated trading is already present in crypto through rule-based bots. Nansen distinguishes the proposed agents as goal-directed systems that reason across multiple data sources, adapt strategies over time and coordinate actions across on-chain positions and off-chain venues, rather than executing simple price-threshold orders.

Nansen noted it is a widely used analytics platform in the crypto industry but did not publish a detailed model explaining how it reached the billions estimate. Industry participants have discussed agentic investment systems; Nansen’s 2028 timeline is a specific public forecast that can be evaluated as AI and blockchain tools develop.