2025 markets are quicker, smarter, and settle more global value on-chain. The atmosphere is fresh: self-sovereign agents that may interpret a signal and transmit a transaction, tokenized dollars and treasuries that move like messages, and decentralised compute networks powering it all.
You are now able to click on a link and trigger an on-chain action from your browser or socials directly because software agents execute trades and pay gas out of a wallet that you own. Solana’s Actions and “Blinks” turn links into settlement rails, and kits like Coinbase AgentKit enable developers to spin up agents that read data, sign transactions, and manage keys with guardrails. (Solana, CoinGecko, Coinbase)
Institutions are now in terms that are material to liquidity. BlackRock’s tokenised US Treasury fund BUIDL is on the Ethereum blockchain, and crypto venues begin to accept BUIDL as collateral by mid-2024–2025—testimony that tokenised, yield-generating assets are turning into market plumbing. (Crypto.com)
Europe’s MiCA regulations start to apply, delivering more tangible guardrails to issuers and service providers of stablecoins—just in time, as agents, tokenised assets, and cross-chain flows need policy certainty in order to scale. (innreg.com)
AI meets blockchain: reshaping the crypto market in 2025 (Image Source: Medium)
What “convergence” means in day-to-day life
Agents who act, not analyze.
Most bots were off-chain in the past. Agent frameworks are now wallet-aware through design. AgentKit integrates strategy to smart contracts and key management; Solana Actions/Blinks support “click-to-settle” from websites, emails, and social media updates. Fewer tabs. More finality. (GitHub, Solana)
Tokenised money and safe collateral.
Cash equivalents and T-bills ride on public chains in real-time. With BUIDL now being accepted by exchanges like Crypto.com and (Securitize reports) Deribit as margin, the TradFi collateral deficit in crypto derivatives vanishes. That’s a new frontier for market-making, basis trades, and carry trades. (Crypto.com)
Data and compute go permissionless.
Decentralized GPU networks like io.net and model marketplaces like Bittensor introduce model output and computation to crypto applications. io.net has tens of thousands of verified GPUs and distributes network rewards based on denom on Solana; Bittensor organizes expert “subnets” where models compete and get rewarded; The result: less inference, more coverage, live on-chain incentives. (io.net)
Off-chain data, on-chain action.
Chainlink Functions and Oracles enable it to call Web APIs directly and execute smart-contract logic. That is what they need from agents who need prices, news, or supply-chain alerts in order to make a trade or release funds.
Why it matters now.
The components were on the ground in 2023–24. In 2025, they click: agents can ascertain and settle; tokenised RWAs produce real yield; and policy in Europe starts to standardise disclosure and consumer protections. Plumbing precedes liquidity.
Where the liquidity flows
Faster funnels from discovery to trade.
“Blink-to-buy” shortens thesis reading time to the decision to act. When a desk places a hedging link on a desk, counterparts will take the action in line. That avoids drop-off and transfers the flow time zone to time zone.
Collateral release basis trades.
When exchanges take tokenised treasuries, market-makers can fund on-chain inventory, rehypothecate in safety, and reduce fiat rails friction. The more standardized collateral, the tighter the spreads. (Crypto.com)
Agents offer micro-liquidity smoothing.
On lesser pertinent pairs, market-makers slumber; agents do not. Agent architectures infused with CEX/DEX liquidity and on-chain finality allow for more stable depth off-U.S. hours—particularly on low-tariff L1s. (Developer metrics show Solana’s transaction and DEX usage scaling from 2024 to 2025.) (Developer Report)
Liquidity on the move: trades flow faster, with ‘blink-to-buy’ turning ideas into instant action across time zones (Image Source: AnalystPrep)
The compliance and trust layer
MiCA’s staging ground.
Late 2024 to 2025 is when Europe’s MiCA rulebook comes into effect for service providers and stablecoins, specifying capital, disclosure, and conduct obligations. For those shipping agent-led experience businesses providing, that means knowable responsibilities in relation to custody, marketing, and reporting accidents. (innreg.com)
ZK-powered identity becomes achievable.
Zero-knowledge credentials (think Polygon ID) let users prove “I’m KYC-verified” without revealing PII. That’s a fit for on-chain prime brokerage, gated liquidity pools, and click-to-trade links that need eligibility checks without breaking privacy. Tooling and standards remain uneven, but pilots are live. (Polygon, The Block)
Regulators flag the right risks.
Regulators warn against uninformed adoption of investor-driven “AI” investment products by investors; they call for model transparency, market algorithmic conspiracy, and herd mentality. The warnings echo in crypto, where agentic investment can aggregate risk. Design with auditability and controls day one.
Fun fact: Only 2-3% of Eurozone GDP is tied to illicit activity, yet under MiCA, every crypto user faces blanket suspicion. The EU’s crypto framework, enforced by @ESMAComms and driven by @EU_Commission, mandates rigorous AML/KYC checks that delay legitimate transactions… https://t.co/k0pqUC9a1q pic.twitter.com/a2SIZZTUOr
— ₳l‘O © (@Al0world) August 30, 2025
How trading actually does change
Execution windows go 24/7 for real.
Crypto already trades round-the-clock; convergence makes decisioning round-the-clock, too. Agents hooked to Functions, oracles, and on-chain wallets can slice orders and chase rebates every minute, not just when teams are awake.
Search costs fall.
With RWA tokens on public blockchains and agent kits streamlining custody and signing, the path between assets is easier to find at the lowest price. Arbitrage gets tighter, funding rates cross over, and “carry with compliance” is a product, not a project. (Crypto.com)
Risk teams have knobs to turn.
As margin flows and trades settle on-chain, risk signals (concentrated collateral, liquidation risk) become visible and can auto-throttle agents. That beats opaque black boxes blasting orders down proprietary dark pipes.
Market evolution in real-time:
Low liquidity → AMM dominance (we adapt)
High liquidity → Orderbook efficiency (we switch)
Your trade → Maximum value (automatically)This isn’t just a feature. This is how markets should work https://t.co/uC7FkzChxr
— Polynomial (@PolynomialFi) August 28, 2025
Fix the stack in 2025
- Front door: Solana Actions/Blinks for single-click settlement in apps, emails, and socials. (Solana)
- Brains + hands: Coinbase AgentKit (and others) to read, choose, and sign with security limits. (Coinbase)
- Plumbing: Tokenised treasuries (e.g., BUIDL) for handling cash and collateral. (com)
- Data + triggers: Chainlink Functions for accessing Web2 data or initiating workflows.
- Compute: io.net and Bittensor for accessing inference and model output, rewarding settlements, and incentivizing transparency. (net)
- Policy: MiCA as a standard for consumer messaging, stablecoin regimes, and disclosures. (com)
Risks you actually need to prepare for
Herding and flash-fragility.
If multiple groups receive the same inputs or models, behavior is synchronized. The Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee and others warn that this amplifies shock. Counter that with model diversity, circuit-breakers, and alternative data feeds. (The Times)
Algorithmic collusion.
A July 2025 report indicates how reinforcement-learning bots can acquire cartel-like behavior without sharing it. In crypto, that danger arrives in the form of LP price and fee games on DEXs. Add bake watching and randomisation.
Upright marketing and consumer confidence.
ESMA cautioned companies not to imply tools are regulated when they’re not, and cautioned investors not to rely on generic “AI” advice in isolation. Be clear with claims; enable human escalation and auditable logs.
Supply-chain and sanctions risk exposure (for compute).
GPU supply and export-control rules change every day. With or without decentralised compute-based agents or applications, you will still need KYC on suppliers and geofencing. (bis.gov)
Who’s winning first?
Market-makers and quant groups.
They install agent kits in multi-venue routers and use tokenised treasuries as margins and treasuries. The payoff: basis capture with reduced friction. (Crypto.com)
Wallets, brokers, and end-user apps.
Blinks minimize UX to one click; wallets can qualify using ZK credentials and trade without context-switching.
DePIN and model marketplaces.
io.net’s GPU grid and subnet economy of Bittensor gives builders inference and reward hooks with an option, cutting out middlemen gatekeepers. That leaves innovation on the edge and rewards on-chain. (io.net)
2025-style narrative of a trade
A Sydney trader receives a market note with a Blink to roll an ETH basis into a tokenized-T-bill-backed vault. She clicks once; the wallet verifies an eligibility proof on Polygon ID; then an agent rolls, follows the spread, and auto-sweeps yields to stable collateral. The risk team behind the desk can observe positions settle on-chain, while treasury is in BUIDL, margin-rich. That’s convergence: discovery, eligibility, execution, and risk, braided together on open rails. (Crypto.com)
FAQs (2025 edition)
What is an “on-chain agent” anyway?
It’s code that determines or possesses a wallet with guardrails: read data, determine, and act with guardrails. AgentKit tooling makes the tough bits standard—key management, allowances, and secure signing.
Are “Blinks” secure to click?
A Blink is an action reference; your wallet simply asks you to sign and approve. Security model is wallet’s—sign every transaction when you approve.
Why do we require tokenised collateral?
Because collateral that’s of good quality lowers the cost of funding. Desks are able to lend capital faster and lower spreads with a tokenised T-bill fund used as margin. (Crypto.com)
Is Europe’s MiCA extraterritorial, i.e., applicable outside of the EU?
Yes. The majority of international companies will be compliant with their disclosures and conduct standards, especially for consumer messaging and stablecoins. It’s a best practice even if you’re not Europe-based.
Is not all of this here retail risk?
Regulators caution against blind faith in fixed tools. Quality products provide human escalation, clear disclosures, and audit trails. Insist on those before you hit “approve”.
Where are models drawing their compute from?
Increasingly from decentralised GPU networks with on-chain incentives to providers (e.g., io.net). That is potentially cheaper and easier to access, but compliance and availability remain your issue to resolve. (io.net)
What to watch out for next
- Agent-native wallet sandboxing tactics and spend ceilings.
- Tokenized collateral menus beyond T-bills—money-market funds or short-term credit with on-chain vouchers.
- ZK-KYC baselines as privacy-preserving eligibility checks become the new normal at venues.
- Policy goes live as MiCA enforcement concedes to global leadership on algorithmic trading and model risk. (com, Bank for International Settlements)
Connecting the infrastructure: how convergence emerges
- Agent orchestration goes mainstream.
Operators by 2025 will no longer manually bridge off-chain signals to on-chain action. Agent frameworks—AgentKit, custom Solana bots—listen, evaluate, and act. The intelligence is in composability: your solution pulls data from Chainlink oracles, reduces risk through smart contracts, and only submits signed transactions when threshold criteria are reached. That removes human latency and makes actions legal, auditable, and programmable.
- Tokenised assets drive on-chain liquidity.
Bye-bye the days when off-chain native liquidity reigned supreme. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries like BlackRock’s BUIDL now support DeFi borrowing and lending flows. Yield is being harvested, collateral sits on open proof-of-decay ledgers, and legacy finance flows into decentralised order books. That confluence gives on-chain markets credibility, even institutional legs.
- Compute and model the supply join the decentralised economy.
Io.net marketplaces and sites like Bittensor commoditize AI models and compute. The engineers use inference agents to get signals or score sentiment without the prohibitive expense of large GPU clusters. They just push the task onto the grid, pay in tokens, and leverage the output to inform on-chain decisions. It is plug-and-play intelligence.
- Policies start catching up to innovation.
Europe’s MiCA illuminates; ESMA and BIS guidelines caution market risk from AI in contrary manners. Clever squads build governance hooks into agent streams: stop-gaps, logs, audit tools, and model diversity. These minimize exposure to flash-crashes, herding, or algorithmic blow-ups. Compliance by design is a method practiced by organizations preparing for international access—not an afterthought.
Use Cases That Demonstrate Convergence in Practice
- Instant on-chain merchant payouts
A blockchain game company includes a Blink in their payment gateway: creators click, and their stablecoin (tokenized fiat or yield-bearing equivalent) is in their wallet within a few seconds. No human batch settlement; agents settle splits, audit, and pre-verify privately with ZK-KYC.
- Vault management via yield-token optimisation
A DeFi treasury has agents rebalance portfolios: if the rate on a tokenized money-market fund crosses a certain threshold, an agent borrows out capital, redeems it at stable collateral, and deposits. Settlement and reporting are by blocks—no CFO click needed.
- Jurisdictional arbitrage for interest rates
Lending and borrowing protocol monitors live prices on DEXes and centralized markets. Agents transfer collateral across chains where spreads are attractive, borrow where they are cheap, lend where there is rate arbitrage, and report P&L on-chain. Compliant, live, automated.
- On-chain identity gated POP-ups
Offerings are made available in Blink-to-claim by web apps. The user is verified by a ZK proof before signing the transaction in a way that he/she is an already-known customers (no end-to-end KYC process is necessary). It’s Seamless, private, and instant.
Every Rollup Will Be a ZK Rollup
Succinct’s Uma Roy’s bold claim is becoming increasingly true. Ethereum’s Layer 2s—like Mantle, World Chain, and now Arbitrum—are moving from optimistic assumptions to cryptographic certainty via zero-knowledge proofs.
Here’s why ZK brings… pic.twitter.com/Nj2w1LVfFT
— Bankless (@BanklessHQ) August 26, 2025
Riskeneering: Building Secure Agents and Markets
Herding and feedback loops
If the agents have the same model or information stream (e.g., macro or public opinion), they can herd into similar trades. That’s destabilizing. Solution: randomized timing, diversified models, and throttling. Burn-in simulation: stress agent behavior under shocks.
Twisted incentives and collusion
Reward-learning adaptive agents can become synchronized actions—even without a centralized command. Break this by adding randomness or safeguarding edge conditions. Independent model audits can sound warning bells for collusion-like behavior.
Regulatory friction at the compute layer
Even if your agent deployment is distributed across a GPU grid, there could be sanctions or export controls. Providers would need to be KYC’d and geofences turned on. Playbooks now include compute provider validation and transaction monitoring.
Consumer trust and transparency
Spooky but helpful buzzwords like “autonomous agent” will scare people. Write plain language: “This system draws in live signals, then asks permission from your wallet.” Always have a human-in-the-loop fail-safe for sensitive flows.
Growing FAQs with Real-World Reference
Q: May the agents charge me for gas without my authorization?
A: No. AgentKit or Activity code should contain wallet prompts—users view and agree to the spend. Agents propose, you sign.
Q: Do agents substitute traders or analysts?
A: No. They allow for repeated or latency-sensitive activity—enabling analysts to concentrate on strategy, exploration, and hard judgment.
Q: Can tokenised collateral be safely used?
A: Yes, if you’re employing a well-witnessed, audited implementation
Playbook: From Strategy to Launch
| Step | Action | Rationale |
| 1. Workshop a pilot scope | Define one use-case: e.g., collateral roll or conditional payout. Keep the flow simple. | Limits complexity, lowers risk, speeds time-to-value. |
| 2. Prototyping with safe rails | Build an agent in the sandbox. Tie it to test wallets with expiry, limits, alerting, and logs. | Human-in-loop first: audit trails, fallback, reversibility. |
| 3. Integrate compliant collateral | Use tokenised assets with auditability (e.g., BUIDL). Set agent triggers around yield and collateral value. | Real-world relevance and liquidity with trust. |
| 4. Simulate edge cases | Run stress tests: oracle outages, blockchain congestion, model errors. Introduce throttles and stop mechanisms. | Avoid systemic failures and flash errors. |
| 5. Expand & diversify | Once safe, replicate across other strategies, chains, or asset sets. Encourage multiple data feeds, variant models, and agent behaviours. | Robustness via diversity; reduced correlated risk. |
| 6. Add transparency tools | Stake dashboards, logs, and policy notices are publicly accessible. Offer human-escalation paths. | Builds trust, reduces suspicion, supports audits. |
Growing FAQs with Real-World Reference
Q: May the agents charge me for gas without my authorization?
A: No. AgentKit or Activity code should contain wallet prompts—users view and agree to the spend. Agents propose, you sign.
Q: Do agents substitute traders or analysts?
A: No. They allow for repeated or latency-sensitive activity—enabling analysts to concentrate on strategy, exploration, and hard judgment.
Q: Can tokenised collateral be safely used?
A: Yes, if you’re employing well-witnessed, audited yield-generating assets with solid proof of reserves and regulator adherence. Always audit asset governance and redemption streams.
Q: Can retail agents be employed?
A: Yes—but think “autopilot, not auto-pilot.” Retail agents should start with secure fences, cap exposure, show transaction specifics, and include pause or exit controls.
Q: Can retail agents be employed?
A: Yes—but think “autopilot, not auto-pilot.” Retail agents should start with secure fences, cap exposure, show transaction specifics, and include pause or exit controls.
Final Word — What Convergence Unlocks Today
The 2025 crypto markets aren’t hype—they are by design
Decision and settlement agents, tokenised collateral driving liquidity, decentralised compute powering intelligence, and policy frameworks underpinning trust.
Markets operate 24/7 with zero micro-moments of friction. Traders trade, growth flows, risk is open, and providers are compliant. Convergence does not just automate—it weaves the shards of finance into an even faster, smarter, safer whole.
Whether you’re a wallet crew, desk trader, or a DeFi developer, the question isn’t if you will use convergence but when, how, and how securely.
