Bots against humanity — The battle for blockchain supremacy

Opinion by: Steven Smith, head of protocol and applied research, Tools for Humanity

Blockchains were designed as systems of trust that are transparent, decentralized and accessible. The age of AI has, however, introduced significant new challenges. Nearly half of all internet traffic is generated by bots, with up to 80% of blockchain transactions now automated and AI agents accounting for most onchain activity. 

While some bots serve legitimate and helpful purposes, others — like those used for airdrop farming and fake account creation — clog networks, drive up fees, and monopolize space and resources.

It’s up to humans to protect the blockchains we know and love, ensuring that people aren’t unfairly disadvantaged by automated systems, insulated from the effect of maximal extractable value attacks and exploits, and free from the need to pay significant gas fees to be included in a block.

The bot takeover is already here

AI bots are becoming more integral to networks and capable of more sophisticated exploits, dominating trading volumes, driving up gas fees, and manipulating decentralized finance (DeFi) markets.

In some cases, networks have seen failure rates surge past 75% due to bot-induced congestion. Even Ethereum’s mempool is increasingly flooded with automated transactions, forcing human users to compete for scarce block space.

The problem extends beyond blockchain networks — it’s affecting the entire economy. AI-powered bots are set to disrupt traditional banking and financial services, threatening the very foundations of how money is managed and transactions are conducted.

It’s only a matter of time before bad actors begin deploying new AI-driven fraud tools at scale, creating an unprecedented security nightmare for financial institutions, businesses and users alike. 

This has already begun. AI-driven botnets fueled a 55% surge in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the banking and financial services industry during 2024.

If action isn’t taken, humans risk ceding control of both decentralized and traditional financial systems to automated systems optimized for speed and scale — not fairness or accessibility. 

Scalability alone won’t solve this problem

So far, the response to these issues has focused on scalability. Layer-2 solutions, rollups and high-performance execution clients make transactions faster and cheaper. 

Scaling without a focus on human users, however, leads to unintended consequences. Lower fees mean attackers can cause much grief for little cost, and bots can flood networks more easily. Meanwhile, faster transactions mean AI traders can outcompete human investors even faster.

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This has played out repeatedly already. A spam attack on Zcash severely disrupted its blockchain. During its token launch, Manta Network suffered a DDoS attack, slowing withdrawals and frustrating users. On Ethereum, bots have been used to manipulate gas prices during high-traffic periods, resulting in delayed transactions and higher transaction fees for real humans.

While scalability is critical, it’s equally important to prioritize another fundamental element of blockchain design: proof-of-human.

Proof-of-human infrastructure

Proof-of-human infrastructure is a mechanism that digitally verifies a person’s humanness and uniqueness. This is key to keeping control of blockchain systems in human hands, giving real people the power to ensure blockchains don’t become automated playgrounds for bots — especially as AI agents continue to scale. 

Proof-of-human systems ensure blockchain architecture evolves with a human-first approach. Networks should allocate guaranteed block space for verified human users, ensuring that automated trading bots don’t push out essential transactions.