Artificial intelligence is evolving and its integration with robotics and blockchain technology could lead to new automation possibilities and financial opportunities.
To address this, developers are now integrating AI with blockchain infrastructure, allowing AI agents to transact securely, manage digital assets, and execute smart contracts. In order to solve this issue, developers have begun integrating AI and blockchain infrastructure. AI agents can now transact safely, manage assets digitally, and perform smart contracts.
At ETH Denver 2025, Decrypt To explore the ways in which AI-powered robots, as well as other systems that are based on blockchain technology can function independently of their owners and managers, we spoke with experts at Coinbase Developer Platform. OpenMind is a robotics company and Robonomics is specialized in AI.
“Out of the box, AI does not interact with the blockchain at all,” Lead Developer at Coinbase Developer Platform Nemil Dalal told Decrypt. “If you want it to have a wallet, send money, or transfer funds to different places, it can't do that. It also can't sign up for a bank account on its own. This is a major limitation because AI, in many cases, needs the ability to transact.”
Dalal stated that Coinbase Developer Platform, recognizing this gap, developed a framework named Agent Kit. The company released it in November. The Agent Kit framework allows AIs to have a wallet and perform all actions on the blockchain that humans can.
Dalal said that it was one of the early use cases of AI agents. Dalal also noted how AI can be used for tasks such as internet monitoring and business transactions.
“So far, over 2,000 developers have built on top of Agent Kit, contributing to over $100 million in value,” “He said” “One of the most popular use cases is tracking something on-chain and executing an action in response—essentially an ‘if this, then do that’ automation.”
Blockchain developers explore the potential of AI for cryptocurrency traders and investors as AI’s influence spreads across industries. Dalal did acknowledge that AI hallucinations continue to be a concern in the industry.
“It may take actions or provide information that is not true,” “He said” “When real money is involved, this issue becomes even more problematic.”
Dalal says that in order to make sure AI does not perform unintended financial actions, it is necessary for users to have greater control over the system.
“For instance, if a transaction is below a certain dollar amount, the AI can proceed automatically. If it exceeds that threshold, approval by the user might be required,” “He said” “Similarly, if the AI is paying a new party for the first time, it may need to whitelist them, whereas subsequent transactions would not require additional approval.”
Jan Liphardt of OpenMind, a startup that provides open-source AI, robotics, and other technologies, says AI and robotics offer a unique, compelling, and innovative use for crypto.
“Blockchains were built for machines, and they're a critical part of the infrastructure that's needed for machines to work well with people,” Liphardt told Decrypt.
Liphardt is a Stanford University professor who specializes in bioengineering. He has highlighted some of the difficulties AI-driven, humanoid robotics have to face when they are placed in human-centric settings, such as airlines and banks, where these robots remain unprepared.
“We're seeing incredible amounts of friction as thinking machines try to navigate the human world, and a big part of that is a lack of identity,” “It’s a good thing,” he added. OpenMind developed Iris with multiple wallets that facilitate cryptocurrency transactions in order to minimize friction.
“She has two wallets,” Liphardt says. “One is a straight Ethereum wallet, and the other is a Coinbase wallet,” He said that Iris held the keys for the wallets and checked the balance every six seconds.
Innovation and safety: a balance
Liphardt explained that, as robots integrate into the human system, they are asked questions regarding their identity, money management, and how they interacted with humans.
Liphardt adds that decentralized ledgers, which already accommodate many of these use cases, are well suited to addressing challenges.
Developers have used blockchain technology in addition to the traditional methods of managing human-robot interaction to enforce immutable and transparent governance rules.
"That's why we write governance and behavior rules onto Ethereum," Liphardt explained. "When a humanoid robot boots up, it reads those rules. If someone asks, 'Why should we trust this computer?' you can simply point them to the governance rules—they're immutable and publicly accessible. “We adapted Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics onto Ethereum.”
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Liphardt acknowledges that this isn’t a perfect solution.
Inspire by movies like “The Terminator” to reduce fear of robots.” Liphardt noted that medical robots are smaller and more approachable than those used in warehouses or hazardous settings.
For Vitaly Bulatov, evangelist with robotics startup Robonomics, the developer of the humanoid robot Unitree G1, blockchain technology offers resources that smaller robotics developers may not have access to.
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The robot’s processor is only able to run a small LLM. We will need to increase the computing power for this layer.” Bulatov told Decrypt. “We are Polkadot-based, and so serve as an interface to Polkadot. Polkadot’s compute providers are used to boost the computing power needed for this cognitive layer.”
Bulatov said that to integrate autonomous robots seamlessly into our economy, they must be independent agents capable of managing transactions and contractual relationships.
“We give robots a name, wallet and ability to contract with humans.” he said.
The system captures data—including error messages and video feeds—each time a payment is processed. According to Bulatov, this information is recorded with a decentralized storage provider on Polkadot, allowing for verification of task completion.
“This way, no matter how large the autonomous system becomes—whether it’s millions of robots or an entire smart city—we can track that, based on payment, the technical execution happens,” Bulatov said.
Sebastian Sinclair edited the book