The latest articles on DEV Community by William Wulu (@wulushanren). https://dev.to/wulushanren https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4189873%2F0ae60e21-0471-4695-a766-2981b4b85f32.jpg https://dev.to/wulushanren en William Wulu Sat, 17 Oct 2026 05:21:51 +0000 https://dev.to/wulushanren/when-ai-starts-spending-our-money-how-do-we-solve-the-trust-problem-5ed https://dev.to/wulushanren/when-ai-starts-spending-our-money-how-do-we-solve-the-trust-problem-5ed <p>In early 2026, daily active AI agents on-chain reached 250,000, up more than 400% year over year.</p> <p>These agents are no longer just chatbots. They are actually trading, arbitraging, managing funds, and hiring other agents to complete tasks. In 2025, AI agents generated $31 billion in DEX trading volume, accounting for about 2% of all DEX trading volume. Among DeFi protocols newly launched in Q1 2026, 68% include at least one autonomous AI agent.</p> <p>But a core contradiction follows: AI makes execution at scale extremely cheap, but cheap does not mean trustworthy. The execution process is like a black box, and it is hard for users to verify whether an agent acts as promised.</p> <p>The role of blockchain is to provide verifiable state changes, auditable records, and coordination mechanisms that do not require trusting a third party. In other words, AI solves “how to do it,” while blockchain solves “why should we trust it.” Only by combining the two can a real agent economy emerge.</p> agents ai blockchain web3