Who decides an AI agent's trade is 'complete'? Escrow needs a judge. Atomic settlement doesn't.

Short summary

ERC-8183 uses escrow plus evaluator for subjective work-for-hire; HTLC atomic settlement uses cryptography for objective asset swaps with no intermediary. The key difference: judges decide escrow completion, but cryptographic secrets settle atomic trades. Implementations include BNBAgent SDK (escrow) and Hashlock (atomic settlement via MCP).

• •ERC-8183 escrow model requires a third-party evaluator to judge work completion; best for subjective deliverables
• •HTLC atomic settlement uses cryptographic primitives to settle both sides simultaneously or refund; no judge needed
• •BNBAgent SDK (live on mainnet) and Hashlock (testnet-ready) represent the two competing models for agent commerce infrastructure

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.