Custody models at a glance
| Model | Key custody | Built for | Compliance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Custodial wallets | OMS (Polygon) | End users of regulated products | Included: KYC, AML, 38 US states |
| Non-custodial wallets | The user (non-custodial) | Consumers in your app | Developer-managed |
| Agentic wallets | The agent (scoped, non-custodial) | Autonomous AI agents | Policy-based spending limits |
Custodial wallets
OMS custodial wallets are managed by Polygon’s infrastructure. Private keys never leave OMS systems. Your end user holds a balance; OMS holds the keys. This is the right model when you are building a regulated product: a neobank, fintech app, or remittance service. KYC, KYB, AML screening, and transaction monitoring are built in rather than bolt-on. Because keys are centralized under OMS, each customer must receive endorsements before they can move funds, those endorsements are delivered via webhook after identity verification clears. All OMS transactions,fiatToCrypto, cryptoToFiat, and cryptoToCrypto: settle through custodial wallets. If your product needs fiat rails, custodial wallets are the foundation.
Non-custodial wallets
Non-custodial wallets are non-custodial: users control their own keys, and no third party can move funds on their behalf. They are built on ERC-4337 smart contract accounts. The distinction from a typical crypto wallet is the developer experience. Non-custodial wallets are designed to disappear into the product, no browser extensions, no seed phrase prompts during onboarding, no separate app. Authentication uses passkeys, social login, or email OTP. Smart contract accounts let developers scope what a session can do, so recurring or batched transactions happen without prompting the user at each step. This model fits consumer apps where users should not need to know they have a wallet. Gas sponsorship means the app pays fees, not the user, which removes friction during onboarding. If your product needs onchain assets under user control rather than fiat rails, non-custodial wallets are the right layer.Non-custodial wallets and OMS custodial wallets address different problems. A single product can use both: OMS for fiat movement and compliance, non-custodial wallets for user-controlled onchain assets.
Agentic wallets
Agentic wallets are for autonomous software agents that need to initiate and settle payments without human confirmation at each step. They use the same smart contract account infrastructure as non-custodial wallets, but the permission model is designed for agents rather than people. Agents operate under Smart Sessions: scoped permissions that define a spending limit, an allowed set of contracts, and an expiry window. The agent works within those bounds without holding a full private key, and cannot exceed what it was authorized to do. Private keys are encrypted at rest and never exposed to the agent’s context. The broader agentic stack also includes the x402 protocol (HTTP-native micropayments via the 402 status code) and ERC-8004 (onchain agent identity and reputation). Those are protocol-level components; agentic wallets are the on-ramp to that stack.Choosing a model
The three models are not mutually exclusive. A product can combine them:- Use custodial wallets (OMS) for regulated fiat flows and compliance
- Layer non-custodial wallets on top if users need direct onchain access
- Add agentic wallets when autonomous payment flows become part of the product