Kraken Co-CEO and Dragonfly Partner Debate Safety of AI-Managed Crypto Assets

Autonomous AI agents that can operate wallets, execute trades and move funds without human oversight of every transaction are emerging as a focus for the crypto industry. That promise of efficiency comes with security risks: blockchain transactions are often difficult to reverse if a model makes a mistake, is attacked or receives poorly controlled permissions. The disagreement between Kraken and venture capital firm Dragonfly over the technology’s maturity could shape whether automated finance can be deployed at scale.

Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi and Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi clashed at NEARCON 2026 on February 23, 2026. Qureshi said a system with 90% or 95% reliability would still be unusable and that he would entrust AI with only 5% of his portfolio. Sethi answered 100%, saying he would be willing within six to 12 months to hand all his crypto assets to an autonomous agent. He added that Kraken’s feature was only weeks to months away from launch.