Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has launched AI Sub-Accounts, a dedicated account type that isolates the activity of an AI trading agent from a user’s main account and constrains what that agent is permitted to do. The feature applies by default when a Bybit user connects an AI agent.
The design treats an AI agent as a separate, limited identity rather than an extension of the account holder. An agent operates inside a ringfenced sub-account, with transactions confined to that account and no ability to move assets into the user’s primary account or other sub-accounts. The sub-account has no login access and cannot be switched into through the app, which Bybit says prevents an agent’s credentials from being used to hijack the wider account.
Within that boundary, the account holder sets the agent’s permissions. Controls include a cap on the maximum assets the sub-account can hold, disabled withdrawals, and per-account leverage limits, so a compromised or malfunctioning agent cannot exceed a defined risk envelope. The agent executes through API access only, with no manual access to the funds it controls, while the parent account retains read-only oversight and real-time monitoring of the agent’s activity.
“No agent should have unchecked power over a trader’s full portfolio,” said Victor Wu, Bybit’s Head of AI Agent Architecture. “Bybit’s AI Sub-Account creates a security perimeter that protects assets while allowing traders to benefit from AI innovation.”
The account type is built around delegated-authority questions central to AI agent identity: what an agent is permitted to do, whose authority it acts under, and how that authority is bounded and logged. Those questions have moved into formal standards work, including a NIST concept paper on AI agent identity and authorization. Bybit frames its account type as applying that principle to live trading, where a rogue or exploited agent could otherwise trigger unauthorized transfers or liquidations.
By making fund isolation and permission limits the default for any connected agent, Bybit ties the controls to the act of granting an agent access rather than leaving them as optional settings, keeping a human-held account as the boundary around automated trading activity.
Sources: PR Newswire, Bybit
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
