ERC-7715 and the Infrastructure Agentic Payments Need

Apr 17, 2026

AI agents are no longer just reading onchain data — they're transacting. Portfolio rebalancers, DCA bots, yield optimizers, and multi-agent systems are executing real value transfers across DeFi protocols every day. But until now, every one of those transactions required either broad token approvals or a human signing each step.

ERC-7715 changes that. The standard, which went live on Polygon in April 2026, introduces scoped wallet permissions — letting agents request precisely defined access to a user's wallet without requiring repeated confirmations. It's the missing piece that makes autonomous onchain agents practical.

But permissions are only half the equation. An agent with permission to transact still needs infrastructure to execute across chains. That's where crosschain execution infrastructure becomes critical.

What ERC-7715 Does

ERC-7715 introduces a new method — wallet_grantPermissions — that lets a dApp or agent request specific, bounded access to a user's smart account. Instead of approving a blanket token allowance or signing every transaction individually, a user defines exactly what the agent can do:

• Spend up to 10 USDC per day for 30 days
• Interact only with a specific smart contract
• Execute trades only within defined slippage bounds

The permissions are enforced onchain through MetaMask's Delegation Toolkit. Once a user grants a permission, a delegation is created from their smart account to the agent's session account. The agent can then execute within those boundaries without further user interaction.

This matters because the previous options for agent authorization were inadequate. Unlimited token approvals expose users to unbounded risk. Manual signing at every step defeats the purpose of autonomous agents. ERC-7715 provides the middle ground: bounded autonomy enforced by code.

Why Permissions Alone Aren't Enough

ERC-7715 solves the authorization problem. An agent knows it's allowed to spend 10 USDC per day on ETH. But what happens when the agent's USDC sits on Arbitrum and the best yield is on Base? Or when the agent needs to rebalance across three chains simultaneously?

The agent now has permission to act — but it still faces the same crosschain fragmentation that every onchain participant faces:

Multiple gas tokens

Executing on Base requires ETH on Base. Executing on Solana requires SOL. An autonomous agent managing positions across five chains would need to maintain gas balances on all of them.

Routing complexity

Moving value from Arbitrum USDC to Base ETH involves finding optimal liquidity, calculating slippage, and constructing multi-step transactions. For an agent operating at machine speed across dozens of chains, building and maintaining this routing logic is a significant engineering burden.

Fragmented liquidity

The same asset exists on many chains, but liquidity depth varies. An agent making a large trade on a thin-liquidity chain gets worse execution. The agent needs infrastructure that sources liquidity across the entire crosschain landscape.

Failure handling

Crosschain transactions can partially fail. If an agent's transaction stalls mid-execution with no automatic resolution, the user's funds are stuck — and the user may not even be aware, because the entire point of the delegation was to remove them from the loop.

Permissions tell the agent what it's allowed to do. Crosschain infrastructure determines whether it can actually do it.

How Crosschain Infrastructure Completes the Stack

Relay is crosschain interoperability infrastructure that enables applications and agents to move value across 85+ chains in a single step. The architecture is intent-based: the caller specifies the desired outcome, and Relay's competitive solver network handles execution.

This model maps directly to how a permissioned agent operates:

Intent-native execution

An ERC-7715-authorized agent doesn't need to construct multi-hop transactions manually. It specifies what it wants — "deliver 50 USDC to this address on Base" — and the protocol determines the optimal route, handles the liquidity, and executes. The agent stays within its permission bounds while the infrastructure handles the crosschain complexity.

Gas abstracted

Agents don't need to maintain native token balances on every chain. Relay's solver network covers destination gas as part of the intent execution. An agent with ERC-7715 permission to spend USDC can transact on any supported chain without holding ETH, SOL, or any other gas token.

Single API call

Relay exposes a programmatic API. The agent makes one call describing the desired end state, signs with its delegated authority, and the protocol handles everything downstream. No wallet popups, no manual confirmations — which is exactly what ERC-7715 was designed to enable.

Automatic completion

Transactions through Relay complete or revert automatically with 99.9%+ reliability. For an autonomous agent operating without human oversight, this is essential. The agent doesn't need retry logic, stuck-transaction monitoring, or manual intervention workflows.

Any asset, any chain

An agent holding USDC on Ethereum that needs to execute a trade on Solana doesn't need to manage a multi-step crosschain flow. It specifies the intent, and the solver network handles asset conversion and crosschain routing in a single transaction.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Consider a DCA agent authorized via ERC-7715 to spend 10 USDC per day on ETH for 30 days. Without crosschain infrastructure, the agent buys ETH only on the chain where the user's USDC sits — missing better prices or yield opportunities on other networks.

With crosschain execution infrastructure, the agent can evaluate ETH prices across every supported chain, execute wherever the best rate exists, and deliver the ETH to whichever chain the user specifies — all within a single API call, all within the permission bounds set by ERC-7715.

Scale this to multi-agent systems: a coordinating agent dispatches tasks to specialist agents, each authorized with scoped permissions, each executing across different chains. The orchestrating agent doesn't need to know the crosschain routing details for each sub-task. It delegates intent, and the crosschain layer resolves execution.

The Stack Coming Together

ERC-7715 is one layer in a stack that's maturing rapidly:

EIP-7702 upgrades EOAs into smart accounts, giving wallets the programmability that delegation requires. Relay already supports 7702-based gasless execution for integrators.

ERC-7715 sits on top of 7702, providing the permission framework that lets agents request and receive scoped access to those smart accounts.

Crosschain execution infrastructure like Relay sits underneath both, providing the execution layer that agents need once they have permission to act. Intent-based architecture, competitive solver networks, and 85+ chain coverage turn agent permissions into agent actions.

None of these layers work in isolation. Permissions without execution are theoretical. Execution without permissions requires humans in the loop. The full stack — smart accounts, scoped permissions, crosschain infrastructure — is what makes autonomous, multi-chain agent commerce real.

What Comes Next

Agent transaction volume is growing. As more applications integrate ERC-7715 and more users delegate scoped authority to agents, the demand on crosschain infrastructure scales accordingly. Every new agent with crosschain permissions is a new source of crosschain transaction volume.

The infrastructure that handles this needs to be fast, reliable, and chain-agnostic — not optimized for one network, but available everywhere agents operate. With 85+ chains supported, sub-3-second median settlement, and 99.9%+ reliability, Relay is built for this load.

The permission layer is here. The crosschain execution layer is here. What's left is for builders to connect them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ERC-7715?
ERC-7715 is an Ethereum standard that lets dApps and AI agents request scoped, granular permissions from a user's smart account wallet. Instead of broad token approvals, the user defines specific boundaries — how much the agent can spend, on what, and for how long — enforced onchain through smart contract delegation.

Does Relay support ERC-7715 directly?
Relay operates at the crosschain execution layer, not the wallet permission layer. ERC-7715 governs what an agent is authorized to do; Relay provides the infrastructure for the agent to execute crosschain transactions. They're complementary — an agent uses ERC-7715 to get permission, then uses Relay to move value across chains.

Which wallets support ERC-7715?
As of April 2026, MetaMask supports ERC-7715 through its Delegation Toolkit and Smart Accounts Kit. The standard went live on Polygon in April 2026, with broader chain support expected to follow. The standard was co-authored by MetaMask, WalletConnect, ZeroDev, and Biconomy.

How is ERC-7715 different from token approvals?
Traditional token approvals (ERC-20 approve) grant unlimited or fixed-amount access to a specific token for a specific contract, with no time bounds or behavioral constraints. ERC-7715 permissions are scoped across multiple dimensions: amount limits, time windows, specific contracts, and transaction types. Permissions expire automatically and can be revoked at any time.

Can agents using ERC-7715 transact across multiple chains?
With crosschain infrastructure, yes. ERC-7715 grants the permission; crosschain execution infrastructure handles the multi-chain routing. An agent with a USDC spending permission can execute transactions on any chain supported by the crosschain layer, without the user needing to set up separate permissions per chain.