$BNB According to data from Agentscan and 8004scan, Chain has surpassed Ethereum as the blockchain hosting AI agents operating based on the ERC-8004 standard.
There are currently 34,278 registered ERC-8004 AI agents out of a total of 89,451. $BNB smart chain (BSC), $BNB Chain Ecosystem’s EVM-compatible blockchain network, per 8004scan. Base is the second largest network in terms of number of agents, with 16,549, followed by Ethereum mainnet with just over 14,000.
ERC-8004 agent per chain. Source: 8004scan
According to data from Agentscan, when using the ERC-8004 standard, BSC leads with 39,000 agents, while Base and Ethereum are roughly tied between 28,000 and 30,000 on-chain agents.
The on-chain AI agent sector has experienced explosive growth in recent months. $BNB Chain agents in particular have increased rapidly this month. At the time, BSC had just 6.6,000 agents, with Ethereum leading with 29,000, according to a March 1st X post citing data from Agentscan.
Since the beginning of the year, the number of agents using ERC-8004 across blockchain networks has increased from 337 to nearly 130,000, an increase of more than 39,000%, according to data from 8004scan.
Total number of on-chain agents, January 2026 to present. Source: 8004scan
The ERC-8004 standard, announced by the Ethereum Foundation earlier this year, defines how AI agents register on-chain identities, manage wallets, and interact with smart contracts autonomously, acting 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, the number of agents was $BNB As the chain proliferated, so did the number of agent transactions. Looking at the daily transaction volume related to ERC-8004 agents on BSC, since early February, the daily transaction count reached a high of nearly 523,000 transactions on March 10, according to data from Dune Analytics.
Agent-driven trading volume across decentralized exchanges $BNB The post-February chain also reached a one-day high of more than $18.1 million yesterday, March 11th.
BSC ERC-8004 Agent daily DEX volume. Source: Dune
Defiant was unable to verify on-chain activity data such as DEX volumes for ERC-8004 agents across other blockchain networks.
why $BNB chain?
Nina Rong, Executive Director of Growth $BNB The chain specifically points to infrastructure fundamentals to explain the proliferation of agents in its ecosystem.
“Most blockchains are designed with human users in mind,” she told The Defiant. “This doesn’t work for autonomous agents operating at machine speed and performing thousands of interactions a day.” Rong noted that lower fees and faster settlements on BSC make microtransactions economically viable, but argued that the on-chain identity capabilities enabled within the ecosystem are a deeper driver.
Through ERC-8004, agents obtain a portable, decentralized identity. $BNB Chain has developed a second layer of the standard called BAP-578. This layer acts like a reputation standard built on the ERC-721 NFT format, giving each agent a verifiable and tradable on-chain track record. This is what Rong describes as unique. $BNB chain.
“When you put everything together: speed, economics, identity layer, reputation infrastructure, etc. $BNB Chains are not only compatible with autonomous agent economies; That’s what it’s designed for,” Ron told The Defiant.
The big picture: How much money are agents actually spending?
Agent economics is still in its infancy, and even its valuation is being debated. As a16z cryptocurrency partner Noah Levine pointed out in yesterday’s X-Post, Bloomberg cited $24 million in AI agent payouts over a 30-day period via the cross-chain x402 payment protocol, but Artemis says Allium’s on-chain data put that number at $3 million, which shrunk to $1.6 million after filtering out wash transactions.
According to Levine, most agents’ economic activity is centered around developer tools such as web scraping, browser sessions, and image generation, which do not require an account and are charged per query.
Google recently announced the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), which uses the x402 standard, in collaboration with 60 companies including EigenCloud, Coinbase, Ethereum Foundation, and MetaMask.
Security remains an open issue
In the comments for “The Defiant,” $BNB Chain’s Rong acknowledged that it is still in its early stages and there are risks to on-chain agent activity.
“Agents have a long way to go in the security space,” she said, comparing the current moment to the early stages of rapidly expanding technology. Ron added: $BNB Chain is collaborating with security experts on tools such as scanners for OpenClaw skills and standards for wallet key management.
This challenge is already being addressed at the infrastructure level. As The Defiant reported yesterday, AI agent platform CoinFello has released an open-source OpenClaw skill that allows agents to execute on-chain transactions via MetaMask without accessing users’ private keys. This addresses what the company describes as a core vulnerability in modern agent wallet designs, where private keys and API credentials are typically stored in plain text.
This article was written with the help of AI Workflow. All of our stories are hand-picked, edited and fact-checked by humans.
