MetaMask, Trezor and ChangeNOW weigh AI agents and wallet security at Token2049 Singapore

MetaMask has run as a browser-based hot wallet since 2016 and Trezor as a hardware signer since 2014, each built on the premise that a human reviews and approves every transaction. WalletConnect sits between them, relaying signing requests from dapps to whichever wallet a user holds. AI agents that can propose or execute trades on their own break that human-in-the-loop assumption, which is why custody teams and interface teams are now arguing about the same roadmap instead of separate ones.

Wallet engineers will need to build permission layers, think spending caps, allowlists, and session keys, before letting any agent touch a signing flow. Users gain the option to delegate routine DeFi or portfolio actions to software, but they also inherit a new attack surface: an agent tricked by a malicious prompt or compromised API can authorize transfers a human would have questioned. Developers shipping agent features now carry the burden of proving those safeguards work before, not after, funds move.

Self-custody wallets were designed so a private key, and the person holding it, stays the final checkpoint on any transaction. Handing that checkpoint to an autonomous agent, even a well-intentioned one, pushes against that design rather than extending it, and the industry has not settled whether 'convenience' can coexist with the hardware-confirmation model Trezor built its reputation on. Framing this as a balance, as the panel did, is fair, but it understates how much trust is being asked of users.

No product launch or technical standard came out of the Singapore panels themselves; the session functioned as a public airing of a disagreement still being worked out internally at each firm. Watch whether MetaMask or Trezor publish a concrete permissioning framework for agent-initiated transactions in the months following, since that would mark the first attempt to formalize the safeguards discussed rather than merely debate them on stage.