Robinhood said eligible U.S.-based customers will soon be able to connect with third-party AI agents to make crypto trades on their behalf, marking the latest expansion of autonomous trading after the company in May introduced a similar product for stock and options traders.
“You can work with an agent to create a strategy with specific guardrails and you don’t have to constantly monitor your account” – Robinhood executive he said during Friday’s presentation.
Robinhood did not specify a date when it will make the product available to eligible US cryptocurrency traders, but noted that UK customers will be next in line to access the offer.
Stock market traders can now ask AI agents to invest in cryptocurrency mining stocks on their behalf. Source: Robinhood
The focus on autonomous cryptocurrency trading complements Robinhood’s broader crypto strategy, which has focused primarily on real-world asset tokenization and the Robinhood Chain Layer 2 Ethereum network, which launched earlier this month.
Robinhood Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cryptocurrency, Johann Kerbrat he said the recent blockchain processed 17 million transactions from almost 350,000 wallet addresses in its first week.
Meanwhile, since delayed May, when the platform launched a beta version of the product, Robinhood stock and options traders have already created more than 70,000 agent accounts.
AI agents serve to level the playing field
During the presentation, the Robinhood executive said that AI agents will enable retail users to base trades on data they would otherwise miss, putting them on a level playing field with institutions:
“This is another big step towards providing retail investors with all the benefits that institutions have enjoyed for decades.”
Robinhood offers agent accounts through several third-party AI companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX’s Grok.
Robinhood also allows authorized users to make credit card purchases on their behalf through AI agents.
This comes as cryptocurrency industry executives such as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire have said that AI agents will become the dominant users of blockchain payments over the next few years.
Crypto payment integration of AI agents is also taking place
There have been several notable integrations supporting AI agent-driven stablecoin spending in recent months, including one by Amazon Web Services in May when it integrated Coinbase’s x402 payments protocol with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, allowing agents to transact in the USDC stablecoin (USDC).
Related: Robinhood Venture Fund invests $75 million in OpenAI
In April, cryptocurrency wallet startup Oobit launched a Visa-powered virtual card for AI agents who can make online purchases in USDT (USDT) on behalf of companies.
Delay in accepting payments from AI agents
Despite the integration, data shows that AI agent transaction activity on the blockchain remains relatively low, with Artemis data showing that only $2 million in transaction volume was processed via the AI agent-powered x402 protocol in June.
Characteristics: The 5 types of real-world assets tokenized the fastest on the web
