Exchanges and brokerages profit when customers trade frequently, regardless of whether those customers make money. Independent AI trading agents compensated only on portfolio gains could disrupt that misaligned incentive structure, according to an opinion piece published May 28, 2026.
The argument hinges on a simple economic fact: zero-commission trading is funded by payment for order flow (PFOF), where market makers pay brokers to route customer orders. U.S. market makers paid $4.9 billion for order flow in 2025, up from $3.8 billion in 2021. Robinhood, a major brokerage, derived 75 percent of peak revenue from PFOF, creating a direct incentive to maximize trading volume rather than customer returns.
Robo-advisors charge fixed percentages regardless of performance (0.25 percent annually), while human advisors charge against principal even during down years (1 percent annually). Both models decouple advisor compensation from client outcomes. Independent agents could operate differently: smart contracts could tie compensation directly to portfolio gains, aligning agent incentives with trader success for the first time.
“The agent you can trust with your hard-earned capital sits outside all three,” said Saad Naja, the author. “Discipline is hard to sell for an exchange because it shrinks order flow.”
Retail trading losses remain severe. Research from PiP World found that 74 percent to 89 percent of retail users lose money trading. The April 14 SEC approval eliminating the Pattern Day Trader rule’s $25,000 minimum-equity requirement has lowered barriers to trading, potentially increasing order flow and losses among less-capitalized traders.
The crypto derivatives market, where agents could operate, generated $18.6 trillion in volume during Q1 2026, with derivatives representing 70 percent of global crypto trading. Several platforms have begun integrating agent infrastructure: Anthropic unveiled new agents for finance, Circle launched nanopayments, MoonPay launched a debit card for agents, and Gemini launched agentic trading.
Regulatory pressure is mounting on traditional PFOF models. The EU PFOF ban takes effect June 30, 2026, forcing European brokerages to find alternative revenue sources. Trade Republic, a European savings platform, will face direct impact.
Independent agents operating on performance-based incentives could offer retail customers a fairer counterparty. “The first agentic platform that proves this alignment onchain will give retail investors a fairer counterparty, whose economics finally move in the same direction as theirs,” Naja wrote.
The structural shift depends on whether independent agents with programmable, performance-based compensation models can gain adoption. Hyperliquid, a perpetual DEX, represents one venue where such agents could operate without traditional exchange intermediation. Whether regulators will approve independent agent frameworks, and whether retail traders will trust capital to algorithmic counterparties, remains unresolved.
