One Batch to Rule Them All: Biconomy's ERC-8211 Wants to Make Multi-Step DeFi Less Painful

Biconomy just dropped a new Ethereum standard that could make life easier for anyone doing DeFi — especially AI agents running on autopilot, because let's be honest, humans can barely keep track of their own positions, let alone delegate to a bot.

The proposed ERC-8211, introduced Tuesday, introduces something called smart batching. In plain English: it lets multiple blockchain operations happen in a single transaction, with each step dynamically using the output of the previous one. Think of it like a Rube Goldberg machine, but one that actually works and doesn't require three pages of gas fees.

Why does this matter? Because DeFi is full of situations where you don't know the outcome until it happens. Swap token A for token B? You won't know exactly how much B you get until the swap executes — prices move, fees fluctuate. It's like ordering food delivery and only finding out what you actually got when it arrives at your door, except the delivery driver is a smart contract and there's no tip button.

"When you have an output from something like a swap, you don't know how much that will be," Biconomy co-founder Ahmed Al-Balaghi told Decrypt. "Developers have to either hard code that or find another way for that output to be used as an input for something else, like a deposit." Currently, developers are out here duct-taping solutions together like it's 2019 and we're all still using MySpace.

ERC-8211 solves this by letting each step reference the previous step's result in real time, rather than locking in numbers when the transaction gets signed. An AI agent could theoretically withdraw from a lending protocol, swap whatever it got, and deposit the result into another protocol — all in one signed transaction. It's like a financial assembly line, but the workers never take breaks and don't complain about unionization.

Notably, this isn't an Ethereum Improvement Proposal. It's an ERC, which means it doesn't require a core protocol change or hard fork. Developers can implement it on existing infrastructure. No need to wake up Vitalik and ask him to change the base layer like it's a feature request for a SaaS product.

"EIPs are still somewhat harder on Ethereum, just because that does needs more stakeholders. That's why ERCs exist, because they don't need a protocol change," Al-Balaghi said. It's the difference between asking permission from the HOA versus just painting your fence and hoping nobody notices.

The Ethereum Foundation is on board. Barnabé Monnot, a research scientist with the Foundation, said the proposal fits squarely within their strategic priority to improve user experience. The collaboration started during a 2025 workshop focused on UX improvements. Someone at the Foundation finally realized that making users click "confirm" forty times per transaction might not be the peak of human civilization.

"The agentic execution angle is new, but has imposed itself given the rapid developments of agents over the last three months," Monnot said. "It's a perfect use case since agents can orchestrate complex cross-chain interactions, and ERC-8211 gives them the right platform to do so." The robots are coming, and apparently they want to do DeFi without losing their minds either.

Al-Balaghi sees the Foundation's increased openness to collaboration as a positive sign.

"I think the Ethereum Foundation, and this is from what I've seen personally by working with them — they're way more willing to win," he said. "Seeing that level of interactivity, that more competitive nature, wanting things to get done quicker, and being willing to work with the ecosystem is very promising compared to what it was just two years ago." The Foundation apparently discovered that winning feels better than holding governance meetings about whether to hold governance meetings.