"AI trading agent" is used for at least four different products, and the differences matter more than the label. Some are curated strategies that run for you. Some are pooled vaults where a human manager trades everyone's capital together. Some are toolkits that automate rules you write yourself. And some are chat assistants that suggest trades but never place them.
What separates them is who holds your capital while the strategy runs, and who decides what it does.
Compare the four models
| Curated autonomous agents | Manager-led vaults | DIY bot toolkits | LLM assistants | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Examples | Deploy Finance | Hyperliquid HLP and user vaults, Drift vaults | 3Commas, self-hosted bots | ChatGPT, Claude with a read-only integration |
| Who sets the strategy | The platform's quant team, published as a defined mandate | The user-vault leader or delegate; HLP uses protocol strategies | You, rule by rule | Nobody; it suggests, you execute |
| Where your funds sit | Your own wallet, individually held | Pooled into a shared vault address | Your exchange account or connected wallet | Wherever they already are |
| Your result depends on | Your own allocation and the agent's mandate | The vault's aggregate book, shared with every other depositor | The quality of the rules you wrote | Your own execution |
| Charges | No subscription or management fee; gas, exchange fees, and Superstar builder fee | Hyperliquid user vaults: 10% leader profit share; HLP: no leader fee; Drift: vault-specific | Subscription pricing | None |
| Exit | Revoke trading access, use the agent exit flow, then withdraw | Follow the vault's withdrawal rules and lock or redemption period | Stop execution, review open positions, then withdraw if needed | No execution to exit in a read-only setup |
| Work required from you | Choose an agent and an allocation | Evaluate a manager's track record | Design, backtest, and maintain the strategy | Everything |
Curated autonomous agents
A curated agent is a strategy someone else designed, tested, and published with a fixed mandate, and then runs on your capital without pooling it with anyone else's.
Deploy Finance runs two live agents, funded and settled in USDC:
- Income: Funding Rates is market-neutral. It holds long spot against a short perpetual on the same asset so price movement cancels between the legs, and collects the funding leveraged longs pay to shorts.
- Superstar is directional. It trades Hyperliquid spot, perpetuals, and HIP-3 markets, with selective outcome-market positions. Position sizing follows a fixed loss budget.
Your USDC stays in a wallet you control. The agent receives a scoped session key that lets it open, close, and manage positions but never transfer or withdraw funds, and you can revoke it at any time. There is no subscription or management fee on deposits. Gas and exchange fees apply; Superstar also charges a dynamic builder fee of 1 to 10 basis points per trade. See fees.
The trade-off: you take the mandate as published. You do not tune the entry rules, and you do not pick the venue.
Manager-led vaults
Vaults pool depositor capital under a manager or protocol strategy. That is a different ownership and exit model from an individually held agent allocation.
Hyperliquid vaults include HLP, which follows protocol strategies without a leader profit share, and user vaults, whose leaders receive 10% of profits. HLP has a four-day deposit lock from the latest deposit; user vaults have a one-day lock. See Hyperliquid's vault documentation.
Drift vaults pool funds on Solana under a delegate that can trade but cannot directly withdraw depositor capital. Managers configure fees and redemption periods; read the particular vault's terms rather than assuming a standard fee or one-to-seven-day exit.
In both cases your outcome depends on the vault's aggregate book, not a position sized for you. You get the manager's skill, and depositor flows can affect position management and liquidity.
DIY bot toolkits
3Commas is the reference point here: non-custodial software that connects to exchange accounts through API keys, plus a Web3 connection to Hyperliquid. It offers DCA, Grid, and Signal Bots, SmartTrade for manual execution, and an AI Assistant that can draft and backtest a DCA configuration from a description.
A toolkit gives you the most control and asks for the most work. You are the strategist. The automation only executes rules you are responsible for designing, testing, and maintaining as market conditions change.
LLM assistants, and where they stop
A general chat assistant can explain funding rates, read a chart you paste in, or reason about a position. On its own it cannot hold a key, sign a transaction, or place an order.
What has changed is the bridge. Deploy Finance exposes a Model Context Protocol server at https://mcp.deploy.finance/mcp with tools grouped into learn, explore, fund, earn, and exit. Read-only tools (asking what Deploy is, browsing live agents, simulating yield on an amount) need no sign-in. Tools that require account access use OAuth authorization and operate within approved scopes. A connected assistant's execution authority depends on the tools and permissions you grant. The limits are covered on Can ChatGPT or Claude manage your crypto?.
How to choose
Choose a curated agent when you want a defined strategy executed on capital that stays in your own wallet, and you would rather evaluate a published mandate than a manager's discretion.
Choose a vault when you have evaluated a specific manager or protocol strategy, and you are comfortable pooling with other depositors and accepting the lock-up.
Choose a toolkit when you have a strategy of your own and want automation to execute it faithfully.
Choose an assistant when you want help thinking, and you intend to keep execution in your own hands.
Automation is not a risk reduction. Products that execute perpetual-futures strategies carry liquidation, funding-reversal, venue, and smart-contract risk. Market-neutral is not riskless, and a backtest is not a track record. Read Risks before allocating.
Learn more
- What are Deploy Finance agents?
- How to choose an agent
- Deploy Finance vs Hyperliquid vaults
- Deploy Finance vs Drift vaults
- Deploy Finance vs 3Commas
Start with Deploy Finance
Create a self-custodial Deploy Finance wallet and review the live agents.