Your AI can trade for you now. The question is who's holding the money.
A new pattern allows AI agents to trade on users' behalf by connecting to exchange accounts, but this custodial approach introduces trust risks as the exchange holds the funds. A more secure alternative is trust-minimized atomic settlement using Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs), which ensures assets are swapped directly between parties without a middleman, eliminating counterparty risk and custodian vulnerabilities. While custodial methods are suitable for subjective judgments like verifying work completion, atomic settlement is ideal for direct asset swaps where only the delivery of both sides matters. AI
IMPACT AI agents can now execute trades, but the choice between custodial and trust-minimized settlement impacts security and risk.