Two technologies that were each hard enough for the law are now being combined. AI agents can hold wallets, trade crypto-assets and trigger smart contracts. Oracles, which feed outside data into blockchains, increasingly use AI.
Contract
The Law Commission of England and Wales concluded in 2021 that existing law can accommodate smart legal contracts. US law recognises contracts formed by “electronic agents”. Neither answers who bears a loss when an AI agent misreads a market or an AI oracle feeds in wrong data. The answer will usually depend on the terms of the platform and the contracts around the code, which is a reason to have them.
Regulation
In the EU, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation has applied in full since December 2024. A business that uses AI to provide crypto-asset services, such as executing orders for clients, is still providing those services and needs authorisation. From July 2027, EU anti-money laundering rules bar regulated firms from handling anonymity-enhancing coins. In the US and UK, the regulatory perimeter depends on what the activity is, not on whether an AI performs it.
Liability and data
US regulators have treated a decentralised autonomous organisation as an unincorporated association whose participants can be liable. Personal data written to an immutable ledger is difficult to reconcile with rights to erasure and rectification under the GDPR, and adding AI analytics on top increases the profiling risk.
“The code did it” and “the AI did it” are the same argument, and courts have not accepted either.
What to do
Put clear terms around any AI agent or oracle: authority limits, error handling, liability caps and a human kill switch. Keep personal data off-chain.
This article is general information on the law as at November 2026. It is not legal advice and has not been updated since that date. See the terms of use.