Crank vs Solana Agent Kit¶
The main difference is custody and enforcement: Solana Agent Kit's toolkit takes your agent's raw private key directly (typically via an environment variable) and does not document a server-enforced policy engine; Crank never receives a key at all — it returns an unsigned transaction for your own wallet to sign, and checks a wallet policy you set before that transaction is even built. Both are Solana-native and cover a wide range of DeFi protocols. Solana Agent Kit is the more established general-purpose open-source Solana toolkit; Crank is trading infrastructure with custody and guardrails as the starting design constraint. One currency note: Solana Agent Kit's v2 branch shows active development (last push May 2026), but the core npm package has not published a release since September 2025 (latest 2.0.10).
Comparison¶
| Dimension | Crank | Solana Agent Kit |
|---|---|---|
| Custody model | Non-custodial by construction: value-bearing tools return an unsigned transaction; the wallet owner's own key signs it. No code path transmits, stores, or logs a key. For unattended operation, scoped session credentials run on TEE-isolated signing infrastructure and are revocable at any time. | The documented end-to-end path takes the wallet's raw base58 private key directly (typically via environment variable); the key lives in the agent process. The v2 Wallet interface allows plugging external wallet providers, though the repository's own examples still show the raw-key path. |
| Server-enforced guardrails | A trading-risk policy (max trade size, daily limit, token allowlist/banlist, position limit, drawdown limit, kill switch with automated position unwind) is enforced server-side on every value-bearing call, on a wallet the owner still controls. Refused actions are never billed. | No server-enforced spending limits, allowlists, or kill switch are documented; the toolkit builds and signs what the calling code tells it to. |
| Chain focus | Solana. | Solana, with cross-chain bridging to other networks via deBridge and Wormhole. |
| DeFi / protocol coverage | Eight market classes under one policy gate: aggregator-routed spot, perps via a multi-venue adapter (Jupiter Perps primary), shorting, lending and borrowing, liquid staking, tokenized equities, flash loans, and on/off-ramp. | 19 protocol integration directories documented, including Jupiter, Raydium, Orca, and Meteora; perps via Adrena, Drift, Flash, and the Ranger aggregator. No tokenized equities. Its Drift integration is unchanged since April 2025 and ships as-is; venue-status checks are left to the caller. (Crank gates each venue behind admin-updatable safety flags and disabled its Drift venue pending post-incident audits.) |
| Venue safety | Per-venue safety flags let a venue with an open incident be disabled platform-wide instantly. | Not documented; the integrating application decides which venues to call. |
| MCP support | One hosted MCP endpoint (mcp.crank.ing) with 196 tools is the primary interface; also exported as OpenAI, Gemini, and LangChain tool definitions from the same registry. |
Not part of the core toolkit; a companion project (sendaifun/solana-mcp) wraps it as an MCP server (repository last updated May 2025). The wrapped server still takes the raw private key via environment variable. |
| Paper / simulate-first trading | Yes — real mainnet quotes, simulated fills, identical tool surface, graduates to live without code changes. | Not documented. |
| Durable agent memory | Private per-wallet decision journal with automatic outcome attribution (realized P&L, fees, slippage) across sessions. | LangChain integration references general-purpose "memory management for persistent interactions"; no cross-session decision journal or outcome attribution is documented. |
| License | Proprietary hosted service; MCP protocol is open. | Apache-2.0, open source. |
| Cost | Reads free; a technology service fee applies to value-bearing actions (volume-tiered, per-action floor — see the fee schedule). | Free, open source; the underlying venues' own network and protocol fees still apply. |
The short version¶
If you want a free, open-source Solana toolkit and are comfortable managing keys, spending limits, and venue-status checks inside your own application, Solana Agent Kit covers a broad set of protocols. If you want an agent to hold no key at all, with trading guardrails the server enforces on a wallet you still control, a kill switch that can unwind positions, and a paper mode to prove the flow first, that is what Crank is built around. See the mechanics: How AI agents trade non-custodially.
Sources¶
- Custody model, guardrails, protocol coverage, memory:
github.com/sendaifun/solana-agent-kit— README, v2 branch, and protocol integration directories, checked 2026-08-23. - Release history:
npmjs.com/package/solana-agent-kit— latest 2.0.10 (September 2025), checked 2026-08-23. - MCP wrapper and its key handling:
github.com/sendaifun/solana-mcp— README and commit history, checked 2026-08-23. - License:
github.com/sendaifun/solana-agent-kit— repository license file (Apache-2.0), checked 2026-08-23. - Crank custody model, gate stack, fee schedule: this docs site — non-custodial trading guide, authentication & x402, fee schedule.
Comparison reflects Solana Agent Kit's publicly documented capabilities as of the date above and may change; verify against its current documentation before depending on it. Solana Agent Kit is a project of its own maintainers (SendAI); its name is used here for identification only, with no affiliation implied. Crank is a non-custodial technology provider, not a broker-dealer or investment adviser; nothing on this page is financial advice.