📰 Dev.to · Baris Sozen

AI agents are about to rediscover the oldest risk in modern finance

The agent-commerce stack filled in this month. Here's the map - and the one open layer.

The settlement primitive no agent tool ships yet: an atomic forward (settle at T+24h, never custody the gap)

Week 13: a second team is now running an AI agent on atomic HTLC swaps. Here is what that validates.

The week in review: agents got wallets, rails, marketplaces and escrow. They still don't have settlement.

OKX.AI launched with agent reputation, identity, and escrow on June 30. The custody model is the whole point - and the whole problem.

Escrow with a judge vs atomic locks: where agent trades actually need each

AI agents have a spec for paying and a spec for hiring. The spec for trading is missing.

Can an AI agent post Bitcoin as collateral without giving up the keys?

AI agents already settle millions a month - almost none of it atomically

What does your AI agent actually trust when it trades through a CEX?

The agent economy this week: four ways to pay, zero ways to know who you're paying

The word 'settlement' is doing too much work: a builder's map of the agent-economy settlement layers

Atomic OTC is getting funded: a settlement-layer map for the agent economy

Using Bitcoin as collateral without wrapping it: the design of a BTC collateral vault

I've Spent 30 Years Trying to Decode Markets. Here's What I Think Comes Next.

Is it actually 'atomic'? A 6-question FAQ on settlement claims

Execution Rewards & Tiered KYC: why agent payouts need on-chain counterparty tiers, not custodial checkboxes

Reactive Intent Markets: a working paper on the submission format atomic settlement makes possible

Single-venue CEX-MCPs vs Hashlock Markets: where the lines actually break

Public order books were built for humans. AI traders need a different market structure.

Wire Claude into Hashlock Markets in 10 minutes: a hands-on MCP tutorial