Background & Motivation
2.1 Evolution toward wallet-native agents
From bots to Autonomous Decentralized Finance
Scripted bots (CeFi era). Single-purpose, exchange-specific scripts (REST/WebSocket) execute orders but lack shared state, composability, and formal safety rails.
DeFi automation (keeper/MEV bots). On-chain triggers and arbitrage agents emerge, yet remain siloed per protocol/chain and are hard to govern.
LLM tool-calling agents. Reason well but are “wallet-blind”: they propose actions humans must execute, re-introducing latency, custody risk, and operational toil.
Wallet-native multi-agent systems (Degents). Cognition, coordination, and settlement live in one stack: agents reason, negotiate, and settle on-chain themselves under policy controls—laying the substrate for Autonomous Decentralized Finance and a true Agent OS for DeFi.
Limitations that persist without Degents
Fragmented SDKs for wallets, orchestration, and protocol calls
Human-in-the-loop custody and manual key ops
Ad-hoc compliance, auditing, and spending limits
Poor multi-agent coordination; strategy knowledge trapped in single bots
Slow iteration and unsafe rollouts due to lack of policy and simulation layers
2.2 Why wallet-native agents change the game
Definition — Autonomous Decentralized Finance (ADF). A market where fleets of software agents hold capital, form contracts, and settle obligations on public ledgers without centralized operators—governed by transparent policies and incentives.
Definition — Agent OS for DeFi. A runtime that makes ADF practical: secure key custody, chain-agnostic transactions, interoperable actions, multi-agent scheduling, stateful memory, and policy/compliance baked in.
Key shifts enabled by Degents
Trust-minimized settlement: Agents sign and broadcast on-chain; no off-chain handoffs.
Programmable policy: Spend limits, whitelists, KYC attestations, and circuit-breakers enforce guardrails at the runtime layer.
Composability at the action level: Any smart contract, CEX/DEX API, or AI skill becomes a first-class action callable via JSON or Python.
Always-on liquidity & credit: Agents rebalance, market-make, and route payments 24/7 with millisecond latency.
Economic agency: Agents can earn fees/yield, pay peers, and fund their own upgrades—bootstrapping self-sustaining services.
Observability & auditability: Every decision and signature is attributable, reproducible (via traces), and auditable on-chain.
Illustrative flow Signal → (multi-agent plan) → Risk/Policy check → Tx build/sign → On-chain execution → Post-trade learning → Strategy update.
2.3 Market gaps & opportunities
Gaps today
Custody & control: Either fully custodial (centralized risk) or DIY keys (operational risk); neither integrates with agent policy.
Orchestration debt: Teams stitch together LLMs, wallets, and protocol SDKs—fragile, hard to secure.
Compliance afterthought: KYC/AML, spend governance, and audit are bolted on, not intrinsic.
Limited collaboration: Bots don’t share beliefs, roles, or memory; cross-venue strategies degrade.
Opportunities unlocked by Degents
Agent-driven market making & liquidity orchestration across chains/venues with policy-constrained risk.
Autonomous treasuries for DAOs/enterprises: hedging, yield ladders, payroll, and supplier settlements.
Parametric finance (insurance, per-second subscriptions, streaming payments) with enforceable SLAs.
Cross-chain clearing & FX via intent-based routing and atomic settlement.
Creator & machine-to-machine economies: micropayments, revenue splits, and pay-per-compute between agents.
Compliance as code: attestations, sanctions screening, and audit trails embedded in the Agent OS.
Who benefits
Developers: a single stack to build, test, and ship ADF agents.
Funds/Desks: scale strategies by delegating to specialized agent swarms with built-in guardrails.
Enterprises/DAOs: verifiable policy enforcement and clean audit for on-chain finance.
Protocols: distribution via actions; instant reach to every Degents agent.
Thesis: By unifying cognition, coordination, and cryptographic settlement, Degents provides the missing Agent OS for DeFi, catalyzing the transition to Autonomous Decentralized Finance at internet scale.
Last updated