Ethereum (ETH) is preparing to deploy ERC-8004, a new token standard developed by the Ethereum Foundation and Consensys that will give artificial intelligence agents portable on-chain identity, reputation tracking, and validation capabilities for the first time on a major blockchain network.
What Happened: AI Agent Standard Launches
The upgrade introduces three lightweight on-chain registries—identity, reputation, and validation—designed to allow autonomous AI agents to interact across organizations while maintaining verifiable behavioral histories.
Each agent receives a portable identity represented as an ERC-721 NFT, with linked metadata outlining capabilities, endpoints, and credentials.
Davide Crapis, AI lead at the Ethereum Foundation, confirmed the mainnet deployment.
"The ERC-8004 standard is coming to mainnet," he said, describing February as "genesis month."
The standard was built to enable what Ethereum called "discovery and portable reputation," allowing AI services to operate across platforms without centralized gatekeepers. "This unlocks a global market where AI services can interoperate without gatekeepers," the network noted.
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Why It Matters: Infrastructure for Machine Economy
Ethereum Foundation engineer Binji argued that large-scale AI societies require a shared ledger for coordination. "Civilizations scale because humans are capable of implicit trust. AI agents are not," he said. "ERC-8004 cements Ethereum and its L2s as that blockchain."
The launch could benefit AI-focused crypto projects building agent infrastructure, orchestration layers, and on-chain marketplaces.
Analysts point to two categories likely to gain: platforms for agent discovery and reputation tracking, and AI applications spanning decentralized finance, prediction markets, and automated trading.
The standard may gain additional traction through alignment with x402, a protocol for internet-native micropayments between agents. With the global AI market projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2031, ERC-8004 represents Ethereum's clearest attempt to position itself as a coordination layer for autonomous agents.
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