BNB Chain Overtakes Ethereum, Base by Number of AI Agents

BNB Chain has surpassed Ethereum as the blockchain hosting the largest number of AI agents operating under the ERC-8004 standard, according to data from Agentscan and 8004scan.

Out of 89,451 total registered ERC-8004 AI agents, there are currently 34,278 on BNB Smart Chain (BSC), the BNB Chain ecosystem’s EVM-compatible blockchain network, per 8004scan. Base is the second-largest network by number of agents, with 16,549, followed by Ethereum mainnet with just over 14,000.

Data from Agentscan shows BSC leading with 39,000 agents, and Base and Ethereum nearly tied at between 28K-30K on-chain agents using the ERC-8004 standard.

The on-chain AI agent sector has seen explosive growth in recent months, and BNB Chain agents in particular have surged this month. Per an X post on March 1 citing Agentscan data, at the time, BSC had just 6.6K agents, while Ethereum was in the lead with 29K.

Per data from 8004scan, since the start of the year, the number of agents using ERC-8004 across blockchain networks has grown from 337 to nearly 130,000 — an increase of over 39,000%.

The ERC-8004 standard, launched by the Ethereum Foundation earlier this year, defines how AI agents register on-chain identities, manage wallets, and interact with smart contracts autonomously, working 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, as the number of agents on BNB Chain surged, the number of agent transactions did as well. Looking at daily transaction volume tied to ERC-8004 agents on BSC since early February, daily transaction count just reached a high of almost 523,000 transactions on March 10, per data from Dune Analytics.

Agent-driven trading volume across decentralized exchanges on BNB Chain since February also reached a daily high yesterday, March 11, of over $18.1 million.

The Defiant was unable to verify on-chain activity data, like DEX volumes, for ERC-8004 agents across other blockchain networks.

Why BNB Chain?

Nina Rong, executive director of growth at BNB Chain, points to infrastructure fundamentals to explain why agents have proliferated in that ecosystem in particular.

“Most blockchains were designed with human users in mind,” she told The Defiant. “It doesn’t work for autonomous agents operating at machine speed, executing thousands of interactions a day.” Rong pointed to low fees and faster settlement on BSC, making micro-transactions economically viable. But, she argued that on-chain identity capabilities enabled by the ecosystem is the deeper driver.

Through ERC-8004, agents get a portable, decentralized identity. However, BNB Chain developed a second layer for the standard, dubbed BAP-578. This layer works like a reputation standard built on the ERC-721 NFT format, giving each agent a verifiable, tradeable on-chain track record — something Rong describes as unique to BNB Chain.

“When you put all of that together – the speed, the economics, the identity layer, the reputation infrastructure – BNB Chain isn’t just compatible with the autonomous agent economy. It’s designed for it,” Rong told The Defiant.

The Bigger Picture: What Agents Are Actually Spending

The agentic economy is still nascent, and even its measurement is contested. As a16z crypto partner Noah Levine noted in an X post just yesterday, Bloomberg cited $24 million in AI agent payments over a 30-day period via the cross-chain x402 payment protocol — but on-chain data from Allium put the figure at $3 million, shrinking to $1.6 million after filtering wash trades, per Artemis.

Per Levine, most agentic economic activity centers on developer tools: web scraping, browser sessions, image generation, billed per query with no account required.

Google recently unveiled its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), which used the x402 standard, in collaboration with 60 companies – including EigenCloud, Coinbase, the Ethereum Foundation, and MetaMask.

Security Remains an Open Question

In comments to The Defiant, BNB Chain’s Rong acknowledged it’s still early days and on-chain agent activity comes with risks.

“Agents have a long way to go in security,” she said, comparing the current moment to the early stages of any fast-scaling technology. Rong added that BNB Chain is working with security experts on tooling including scanners for OpenClaw skills and standards for wallet key management.

The challenge is already being tackled at the infrastructure level. As The Defiant reported yesterday, AI agent platform CoinFello released an open-source OpenClaw skill allowing agents to execute on-chain transactions via MetaMask without ever accessing a user’s private keys — addressing what the company describes as a core vulnerability in most current agent wallet designs, where private keys or API credentials are typically stored in plain text.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.