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BNB Chain Overtakes Ethereum, Base by Number of AI Agents

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BSC recently became the largest network by registered AI agents using the ERC-8004 standard, while on-chain agent activity in the ecosystem is also rising.

BNB Chain has surpassed Ethereum as the blockchain hosting the largest number of AI agents operating under the ERC-8004 standard, according to data from Agentscan and 8004scan.

Out of 89,451 total registered ERC-8004 AI agents, there are currently 34,278 on BNB Smart Chain (BSC), the BNB Chain ecosystem’s EVM-compatible blockchain network, per 8004scan. Base is the second-largest network by number of agents, with 16,549, followed by Ethereum mainnet with just over 14,000.

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ERC-8004 agents by chain. Source: 8004scan

Data from Agentscan shows BSC leading with 39,000 agents, and Base and Ethereum nearly tied at between 28K-30K on-chain agents using the ERC-8004 standard.

The on-chain AI agent sector has seen explosive growth in recent months, and BNB Chain agents in particular have surged this month. Per an X post on March 1 citing Agentscan data, at the time, BSC had just 6.6K agents, while Ethereum was in the lead with 29K.

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Per data from 8004scan, since the start of the year, the number of agents using ERC-8004 across blockchain networks has grown from 337 to nearly 130,000 — an increase of over 39,000%.

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Total number of on-chain agents, January 2026-present. Source: 8004scan

The ERC-8004 standard, launched by the Ethereum Foundation earlier this year, defines how AI agents register on-chain identities, manage wallets, and interact with smart contracts autonomously, working like an immutable ID or profile for agents that can operate across any chain that supports the standard.

More Agents, More On-Chain Activity

Last month, as the number of agents on BNB Chain surged, the number of agent transactions did as well. Looking at daily transaction volume tied to ERC-8004 agents on BSC since early February, daily transaction count just reached a high of almost 523,000 transactions on March 10, per data from Dune Analytics.

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Daily transaction count by BSC agents using ERC-8004. Source: Dune

Agent-driven trading volume across decentralized exchanges on BNB Chain since February also reached a daily high yesterday, March 11, of over $18.1 million.

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Daily DEX volumes for BSC ERC-8004 agents. Source: Dune

The Defiant was unable to verify on-chain activity data, like DEX volumes, for ERC-8004 agents across other blockchain networks.

Why BNB Chain?

Nina Rong, executive director of growth at BNB Chain, points to infrastructure fundamentals to explain why agents have proliferated in that ecosystem in particular.

“Most blockchains were designed with human users in mind,” she told The Defiant. “It doesn’t work for autonomous agents operating at machine speed, executing thousands of interactions a day.” Rong pointed to low fees and faster settlement on BSC, making micro-transactions economically viable. But, she argued that on-chain identity capabilities enabled by the ecosystem is the deeper driver.

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Through ERC-8004, agents get a portable, decentralized identity. However, BNB Chain developed a second layer for the standard, dubbed BAP-578. This layer works like a reputation standard built on the ERC-721 NFT format, giving each agent a verifiable, tradeable on-chain track record — something Rong describes as unique to BNB Chain.

“When you put all of that together – the speed, the economics, the identity layer, the reputation infrastructure – BNB Chain isn’t just compatible with the autonomous agent economy. It’s designed for it,” Rong told The Defiant.

The Bigger Picture: What Agents Are Actually Spending

The agentic economy is still nascent, and even its measurement is contested. As a16z crypto partner Noah Levine noted in an X post just yesterday, Bloomberg cited $24 million in AI agent payments over a 30-day period via the cross-chain x402 payment protocol — but on-chain data from Allium put the figure at $3 million, shrinking to $1.6 million after filtering wash trades, per Artemis.

Per Levine, most agentic economic activity centers on developer tools: web scraping, browser sessions, image generation, billed per query with no account required.

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Google recently unveiled its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), which used the x402 standard, in collaboration with 60 companies – including EigenCloud, Coinbase, the Ethereum Foundation, and MetaMask.

Security Remains an Open Question

In comments to The Defiant, BNB Chain’s Rong acknowledged it’s still early days and on-chain agent activity comes with risks.

“Agents have a long way to go in security,” she said, comparing the current moment to the early stages of any fast-scaling technology. Rong added that BNB Chain is working with security experts on tooling including scanners for OpenClaw skills and standards for wallet key management.

The challenge is already being tackled at the infrastructure level. As The Defiant reported yesterday, AI agent platform CoinFello released an open-source OpenClaw skill allowing agents to execute on-chain transactions via MetaMask without ever accessing a user’s private keys — addressing what the company describes as a core vulnerability in most current agent wallet designs, where private keys or API credentials are typically stored in plain text.

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This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

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Vitalik says Ethereum’s real value is a global shared data bulletin board

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ETH liquidation walls at $2,057–$1,863 set stage for violent move

Vitalik Buterin reframes Ethereum as censorship‑resistant “global shared memory,” with PeerDAS scaling its data layer for voting, identity, and on‑chain coordination.

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin says the network’s real value lies in acting as a globally shared “bulletin board” for data availability, rather than just a smart contract or payments platform, sharpening the narrative around Ethereum’s role in the broader crypto stack.

Vitalik reframes Ethereum’s core value

In a new post on X, Buterin argued that Ethereum’s fundamental contribution is providing a publicly readable and writable data layer that cryptographic protocols can reliably anchor to. He highlighted that many high-value use cases—secure online voting, software version control, certificate revocation and more—depend on having an open, persistent data space rather than purely on complex smart contract logic.

Buterin framed ETH not only as a payment asset, but as a core instrument for Sybil resistance and as collateral for smart contracts, positioning it at the center of a decentralized, privacy-preserving, open-source technology stack. In his view, smart contracts and DeFi are extensions built atop this shared memory, not the base value proposition itself.

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PeerDAS, scaling, and “global shared memory”

Buterin also pointed to Ethereum’s PeerDAS upgrade as a key step in scaling this data availability layer, saying it already increases Ethereum’s data capacity by about 2.3x, with a path toward 10–100x gains over time. Improved data throughput, combined with lower fees, is meant to support a broader range of applications beyond DeFi, including governance systems, identity, and new classes of on-chain coordination tools.

He summed up Ethereum as a kind of “global shared memory,” where applications can reliably publish and read data in a neutral environment secured by ETH-based economic incentives. For developers and protocols, the message is clear: treat Ethereum first as a durable, censorship-resistant data availability layer, and only secondarily as a smart contract execution chain.

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BlackRock’s Staked ETH ETF Sees $15.5M on Debut

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BlackRock’s Staked ETH ETF Sees $15.5M on Debut

BlackRock’s staked Ethereum exchange-traded fund has tallied $15.5 million in trading volume on its first trading day, which a market analyst described as “very, very solid” despite falling short of two similar Solana staking products that launched last year.

Nasdaq data shows the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust (ETHB) had 592,804 shares traded on its debut on Thursday, with Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart noting on X that the product turned over around $15.5 million.

“Very, very solid for a day 1 ETF launch,” Seyffart said.

The ETF invests and stakes Ether (ETH), locking up the tokens on the blockchain with the aim of providing a yield. The fund relies on network validators to capture staking rewards, typically offering a yield of 4% annually.

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Source: James Seyffart

ETHB’s $15.5 million in debut trading volume trailed similar staking funds tied to the Solana (SOL) token, including the $55.4 million in volume recorded by the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) when it debuted in October. Another similar fund, the REX-Osprey SOL + Staking ETF (SSK), also recorded $33.7 million on its debut in July.

ETHB adds to BlackRock’s crypto product lineup, which includes its two flagship crypto funds, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) and iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA). 

Related: Basic adds VanEck crypto ETFs to 401(k) plans amid US retirement shift

The two ETFs have respectively attracted over $62.8 billion and $11.9 billion worth of inflows since launching in 2024, Farside Investors data shows.