Morning Minute: MetaMask Hands AI Agents a Wallet

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors are slightly green; BTC at $65k
• Clarity Act vote officially delayed until after August recess, 13% chance to pass
• BTC ETFs see another $138M in net inflows, now $750M+ on week
• Robinhood Chain hits new ATH in active addresses after Cashcat gets listed on Robinhood US
• New NFT mint Mancer triples on debut, token runs 11x to $8M

🦊 MetaMask Hands AI Agents a Wallet, With Guardrails and a “Beast Mode”

MetaMask launched Agent Wallet on Thursday, a self-custodial wallet that lets AI agents trade crypto on their own, within limits the user sets.

The pitch is autonomy without handing over the keys: an agent can run swaps, perps, prediction-market bets, and staking across Ethereum-compatible chains and Hyperliquid, but only after users have:

• capped its spending
• allowlisted the protocols it can touch, and
• picked a risk setting.

There are two modes users can choose from, the cautious “Guard Mode” and a fully-let-it-rip “Beast Mode.”

• Guard Mode (default): Users pre-approve the protocols and addresses the agent can touch, and anything outside those rules, or above the spending limit, pauses for 2FA sign-off before it executes
• Beast Mode: Drops the allowlist so the agent trades freely with no approval prompts, relying on real-time threat scanning as the only tripwire, though user spending caps and a malicious-transaction 2FA backstop still apply

Every transaction runs through simulation, threat scanning, and MEV protection, and eligible trades get up to $10,000 a month in loss coverage. It plugs into the AI tools developers already use, including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenClaw, and it handles gas for you, settling fees in whatever token is being moved so an agent never needs to hold a chain’s native coin. There’s no token attached.

To be clear, MetaMask isn’t first here. Coinbase shipped agentic wallets in February and MoonPay’s been building since spring. But MetaMask is the biggest, with roughly a quarter of the wallet market. Consensys and founder Joe Lubin are clearly betting that the next wave of onchain activity won’t be driven by humans at all. Whether traders actually hand real money to autonomous software is the open question, and how soon comfort and trust can be built.

My gut read? We are still 1+ years out. But we are getting closer. And it makes sense to build the infrastructure now, because agentic trading is definitely the future.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are slightly green; BTC +0.4% at $65k; ETH even at $1,913; SOL even at $73.50; HYPE +2% at $56.70
• Top alt movers include LIT (+11%), ADA (+7%) and ENA (+6%)
• Oil +1% at $76.80; Gold +2% at $4,380
• Stock futures are green ahead of new job numbers due today; DOW +0.1%, Nasdaq +0.5%
• The Clarity Act vote was officially delayed until after the August recess (odds of passing this year down to 13%)
• Senators pushed the CFTC to ban “wildfire bets” on prediction markets, pressing the regulator to prohibit contracts wagering on natural disasters as scrutiny of the sector intensifies
• Tether expanded its tokenization business into Saudi Arabia, starting with institutional real estate, with plans to bring other asset classes onchain as it pushes deeper into the Gulf
• JPMorgan said Hyperliquid ETF inflows have stalled, cooling after leading in May and June, as competition from newer products intensified through July and August
• Cathie Wood’s Ark made SpaceX and Circle top holdings after its latest buying spree, with SpaceX now ARKK’s fifth-largest position at nearly $282 million and 4.73% of the portfolio
• Nearly 23% of major Bitcoin miners are running at a daily loss, with about 22.7% of 22 tracked machine models generating negative net returns as of August 6

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mixed; DOGE +1%, SHIB -2%, PEPE +1%, PENGU -2%, TRUMP +2%, BONK -10%
• Robinhood chain had a volatile day after Cashcat was listed on Robinhood US and fell 18% to $104M; new project Mancer’s token jumped 11x to $8M; Pons (+35%) and Index (+45%) other big movers
• Solana leaders included Cate (+90%), Stonk (+45%) and butthole (+150%); ANSEM +5% at $180M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mixed; Punks +2% at 32.2 ETH, BAYC even at 8 ETH, Pudgy even at 3.85 ETH; Stonkbrokers -1% to 7.57 ETH
• New mint Mancers debuted at 0.834 ETH, nearly tripling from its debut price at 0.33 ETH last night (on 450 ETH volume)
• Momo (+450%) and God Pull (+70%) led top movers
• Another XCOPY 1/1 sold for $500k+, marking the 3rd NFT to sell at that price point in 2 days