04 · Wallets & Identity
Wallets, Identity & KYA
Agent wallets are live. Identity standards are being drafted. Nobody has designed the KYA interface yet.
By John Wright-Nyingifa · Product Designer building infrastructure for DeFi, DePIN, and autonomous agents.
Live Signal · March 2026
Coinbase shipped Agentic Wallets with AgentKit (EVM + Solana, works with LangChain, ElizaOS, Vercel AI SDK). Lit Protocol hit $400M+ value managed across 1.6M+ decentralized wallets. ERC-8004 was proposed August 2025 by engineers from MetaMask, Coinbase, Google, and the Ethereum Foundation, three registries (Identity, Reputation, Validation) deployed as per-chain singletons. Dynamic was acquired by Fireblocks (50M+ users, $10T+ institutional transactions). BNB Chain deployed Non-Fungible Agents (BAP-578) as on-chain assets that own wallets.
An agentic wallet is not a wallet you use. It's a wallet that acts on your behalf. Coinbase shipped it. Lit Protocol secured $400M with it. The infrastructure exists. What doesn't exist: the interface for understanding what your agent wallet is doing, why, and how to stop it.
ERC-8004 is the first serious attempt at standardizing agent identity: three on-chain registries covering identity (who), reputation (how trusted), and validation (independently verified). It complements MCP and A2A protocols which handle messaging but lack discovery and trust. The KYA (Know Your Agent) problem is the biggest unsolved UX challenge in the agentic economy.
Wallet Infrastructure
AGENT WALLET STACK (March 2026)
Coinbase AgentKit + Agentic Wallets + x402 + Server Wallets
EVM + Solana, LangChain/ElizaOS/Vercel AI SDK
Lit Protocol Threshold MPC + TEE key management
$400M+ managed, 1.6M+ wallets, $135M+ trading volume
Dynamic 50M+ users → acquired by Fireblocks ($10T+ institutional)
Server wallets for programmatic agent money movement
ERC-8004 Identity + Reputation + Validation registries
Format: {namespace}:{chainId}:{address}:{agentId}
Supports EIP-712 signatures, IPFS metadata, ZK-ML proofsThe KYA Framework
ERC-8004 provides the on-chain primitive. The UX layer doesn't exist yet.
What can the agent spend, where, and when? Lit Protocol's "Vincent" product lets users define exactly what agents can do, enforced by the network. The UX: "allowed to swap up to $500/day on Ethereum" not "ERC-20 approve(0x4a2b, 500000000)."
User → Organization → Agent → Sub-agent. ERC-8004's Identity Registry models this with on-chain registration files. Every level must be auditable, reversible, and legible without cryptographic expertise.
ERC-8004's Reputation Registry uses signed feedback (int128 fixed-point) with IPFS-hosted details and revocation mechanisms. An agent's reputation score should be as scannable as a Yelp rating, but backed by cryptographic proofs.
The most important and least-designed feature. If an agent is compromised (56% smart contract exploit rate per Anthropic), the user needs to stop it in under 2 seconds, from any device, in any state of panic.
KYA — KNOW YOUR AGENT (ERC-8004) Identity Registry (ERC-721) ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Agent: base:8453:0x4a2b:agent-847 │ │ Owner: 0x4a2b...f1c3 │ │ Metadata: ipfs://Qm... │ │ Delegated: 2026-02-14 │ └───────────────────────────────────────┘ Reputation Registry ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Score: 82/100 (signed feedback) │ │ Reviews: 47 (3 revoked) │ │ Tags: [defi, trading, low-risk] │ └───────────────────────────────────────┘ Validation Registry ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Method: ZK-ML proof + TEE │ │ Validator: 0x9f1a... │ │ Stake: 500 USDC │ │ Score: 91/100 │ └───────────────────────────────────────┘
UX Implications
→ Permission UI that reads like natural language. Lit's Vincent enforces permissions at the network level. The interface must match: "allowed to buy ETH worth up to $200 when price drops below $2000."
→ One-tap emergency stop, accessible from notification, lock screen, or app. Revokes all agent permissions immediately. This is the highest-priority interaction in the wallet.
→ Agent identity cards: a standardized component showing ERC-8004 data (identity, permissions, reputation, delegation chain). Scannable in under 5 seconds.
→ Reputation as progressive trust. Operators set conservative guardrails initially (Lit-enforced) and loosen them as ERC-8004 reputation accrues. The UI should make loosening easy but visible.