MetaMask has unveiled Agent Wallet, a self-custodial wallet built to let AI agents autonomously trade and interact with DeFi while operating inside user-defined safety controls.
The release comes as a wave of projects race to give AI assistants real control over crypto funds — a risky shift, according to MetaMask. “It’s genuinely day one for agents, but the infrastructure decision can’t wait because agents are already touching real money, and most of them are doing it the wrong way,” MetaMask Senior Director of Product Zhen Yu Yong told Decrypt. Yong warned that many early agent projects simply hand private keys to AI systems, leaving users exposed to accidental or malicious transactions. “If the first generation of trading agents normalizes giving away your keys, we'll be rebuilding the custodial mistakes crypto spent a decade escaping.”
What Agent Wallet does
- Self-custodial, agent-first wallet that routes agent-initiated transactions through MetaMask’s existing security stack — including transaction simulation, scam and malicious-contract detection, Blockaid-powered threat scanning, Clear Signing, and Servo MEV protection.
- Keys are kept inside a hardware-isolated enclave via Cubist’s trusted execution environment (TEE), which MetaMask says prevents either MetaMask or Consensys from accessing users’ key material.
- Supports EVM-compatible chains, Hyperliquid, and multiple agent frameworks including OpenAI Codex, Anthropic’s Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw, and Hermes Agent.
Built for fallibility, not perfection
MetaMask designed the wallet around the hard truth that large language models (LLMs) can be tricked. “You cannot guarantee an LLM won't be tricked,” Yong said. He pointed to prompt injection — malicious inputs that manipulate AI behavior — as an active research problem rather than a one-off bug. In crypto, such attacks could trick an agent into approving a rogue transaction, moving funds, or interacting with a malicious smart contract.
Two operating modes
- Guard Mode (default): Users set spending limits, approved protocols, and other operating parameters. Transactions that exceed those bounds or trigger risk flags require two-factor authentication (2FA).
- Beast Mode: Designed for hands-off operation; agents can act without a pop-up for every transaction while still operating within user-defined guardrails (spending caps, allowed assets/protocols, time limits). Crucially, Beast Mode does not disable the safety net — any transaction flagged as malicious will still prompt 2FA. “Beast Mode is for users who want genuinely hands-off operation…the agent acts without a pop-up on every transaction. What Beast Mode does not do is switch off the safety net,” Yong said.
Availability and rollout
Agent Wallet is currently in an Early Access Program with roughly 200 users. MetaMask plans a wider rollout later this summer.
Where this fits in the market
MetaMask’s move follows similar pushes from other crypto players building agent-safe infrastructure. Coinbase launched Agentic Wallets in February, isolating keys in TEEs. In March, MoonPay integrated Ledger devices for human-approved AI transactions and proposed the Open Wallet Standard — an open-source framework with contributors like PayPal, the Ethereum Foundation, Solana Foundation, Ripple, and Base to standardize how AI agents handle wallets across chains. MoonPay has also released a desktop app connecting Claude Code and OpenAI Codex to wallets and on-chain tools.
Why it matters
Agent Wallet signals a maturing approach to agent-enabled crypto: rather than betting on perfect AI behavior, MetaMask is engineering guardrails, detection layers, and hardware isolation to limit the blast radius when agents err. For users and builders pushing toward automated portfolio managers, bots and payment agents, those constraints could mean the difference between controlled convenience and a return to custodial-style failures.
Disclaimer: MetaMask is a product of Consensys, one of numerous investors in an editorially independent Decrypt. (Disclosure in original reporting also noted MoonPay Ventures as an investor in Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan.)
Editor's note: This story was updated after publication to correct the spelling of a name.
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