Electric Capital Says AI Agent Wallets Are Pushing Crypto Into a Legal Gray Zone

Electric Capital’s Avichal Garg said crypto wallets controlled by autonomous AI agents are pushing finance into a legal gray zone, as developers increasingly give software the ability to hold assets, pay for services, trade tokens, and even coordinate work with other agents.

Speaking at NEARCON 2026, Garg argued that the technology layer is arriving faster than the legal one. Blockchains enable code to move money globally and instantly without traditional gatekeepers, and, when paired with agents that can make decisions, they create a new category of economic actor: software that can transact continuously.

The unresolved question, Garg said, is responsibility. If an agent-controlled wallet causes harm, through losses, fraud, or illegal activity, existing frameworks don’t clearly define where liability lands. Regulators can punish individuals and companies, but an autonomous agent can’t be fined or jailed in any meaningful sense, leaving courts and policymakers to decide whether accountability should fall on developers, deployers, keyholders, or platforms.

Garg compared the moment to earlier legal shifts that enabled new forms of economic activity at scale, arguing that agent wallets may eventually require similarly clear structures to define control and liability. For now, he said, enforcement and accountability remain unsettled even as real-world experimentation accelerates.