Author: Deep Tide TechFlow
On January 28, Ethereum officially announced that the ERC-8004 protocol is about to launch on the mainnet.
We mentioned this standard in our article last October. If you are completely unfamiliar with it, you can refer here: "x402 Gradually Becoming Inward-Looking, Exploring New Asset Opportunities in ERC-8004 in Advance"
Actually, it has a formal name: "Trustless Agents." In plain language, it roughly means:
Issuing on-chain ID cards for AI Agents.
The Ethereum Foundation rarely promotes an ERC standard so vigorously. They specifically formed a team called dAI, included ERC-8004 in the 2026 strategic roadmap, collaborated with Google, Coinbase, and MetaMask to draft the proposal, and even hosted a Trustless Agents Day at DevConnect in November to build momentum.
The last time Ethereum was this serious about promoting a standard was with ERC-20 and ERC-721.
One defined tokens, the other defined NFTs.
Now it's AI's turn?
Ethereum's AI Anxiety
Why the rush?
Look at some data. According to statistics from Cookie.fun, the market cap distribution of AI Agent tokens shows that Solana and Base together account for 96%. There are only a handful of notable AI Agent projects on the Ethereum mainnet.
In April 2025, the ETH/BTC exchange rate fell to 0.017, a five-year low. Back then, everyone said Ethereum was not the future.
During the DeFi boom, Ethereum was the main stage. During the NFT boom, Ethereum was also the main stage. Now that AI Agents are heating up, the main stage has changed hands.
Solana processes 36 million transactions per day, while the Ethereum mainnet handles 1.13 million. High gas fees and slow speeds have developers voting with their feet. Virtuals Protocol launched on Base, ai16z (now ElizaOS) chose Solana, and even Coinbase's own AI project wasn't placed on the Ethereum mainnet.
Ethereum needs a new story.
ERC-8004 might be the beginning of that story.
Recapping ERC-8004
Back to the standard itself.
How exactly does ERC-8004 issue on-chain ID cards for AI Agents?
You don't need to understand the technical details; just know about three registries.
The first is the Identity Registry. Based on ERC-721, each AI Agent mints an NFT to prove "this is me."
The second is the Reputation Registry. It records the Agent's historical performance, who has used it, their reviews, and whether it has engaged in malicious activities.
The third is the Verification Registry. It allows third-party institutions to endorse the Agent, such as "this Agent has passed a certain security audit."
These three registries combined solve one problem: when two AI Agents meet on-chain, how do they know if the other is trustworthy?
The old answer was: they didn't know and had to rely on humans. ERC-8004's answer is: check the on-chain records.
This system wasn't entirely Ethereum's own idea.
Its underlying logic comes from the A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocol released by Google last year, which enables AIs to communicate and call upon each other. ERC-8004 adds a layer on top of this:
Blockchain-backed trust.
Google's A2A solves the communication problem; Ethereum's ERC-8004 solves the trust problem. One manages the conversation, the other verifies identities.
Is Issuing ID Cards a Good Business?
Daring to speculate, Ethereum's logic might be this:
For AI Agents to be truly useful, they need to manage money themselves. Not just sending tweets or chatting, but directly operating on-chain assets. Signing transactions, calling contracts, cross-protocol arbitrage...
No one dares to do this on a large scale right now. The reason is simple: how do you know this Agent won't transfer your money away? The recently popular ClawdBot already has community members posting about related negative incidents.
The Web2 solution is platform endorsement. You use OpenAI's API, and the trust comes from OpenAI. If something goes wrong, you go to OpenAI.
Web3 doesn't have this. Agents are open-source, deployment is permissionless, and they run on-chain with no one overseeing them. If you call a service from an unknown Agent, you can't check who is behind it, whether the code has issues, or if it has a history of malicious acts...
Simply put, ERC-8004 essentially moves the traditional finance KYC process on-chain. Ethereum is betting that when AI Agents start handling real money, this system will become a necessity.
DeFi protocols wanting to integrate external Agents will first need to check their on-chain identity. Institutions using Agents for trade execution will need to review their historical records. Auditing firms can issue on-chain certifications for Agents, similar to security audits for smart contracts.
This is a competitive positioning move.
Ethereum knows it has lost on the execution layer, but the trust layer is still up for grabs. Institutional recognition, security audit ecosystems, TVL scale—these are Ethereum's existing assets. ERC-8004 is packaging these assets into a standard, aiming to define "what AI Agent compliance looks like" before anyone else.
The question is, does this demand exist now?
Standard Preceding Demand
After discussing Ethereum's calculations, let's talk about reality. What are on-chain AI Agents doing now?
After the AI meme wave subsided last year and the rapid advancements made by leading AI companies in the past couple of years, few people are still paying attention to on-chain AI Agents.
However, they are still making progress.
For example, ai16z has been renamed ElizaOS, evolving from a single Agent to a cross-chain platform; Virtuals Protocol is working on AI DAPPs, planning to venture into physical robots in 2026; others, like the AI Agents in Surf, can automatically execute DeFi trading strategies.
But the question arises: do they really need ERC-8004?
Luna's users trust Luna because it's made by the core Virtuals team. Agents on ElizaOS are used because they run within the ElizaOS framework; Surf executes strategies for you often because you trust the application itself.
Trust comes from the platform, not from an on-chain identity.
The scenario ERC-8004 envisions is: a陌生 (strange) Agent approaches you, with no platform endorsement or brand recognition, and you can only judge its trustworthiness through on-chain records.
When will this scenario occur?
When AI Agents truly achieve autonomous calls across protocols, platforms, and organizational boundaries. An Agent borrowing from Aave, trading on Uniswap, then generating yield in another protocol, all without human approval...
But, this scenario does not exist now.
Current AI Agents, no matter how complex their functions, essentially operate within a single platform. They don't need to prove themselves to陌生 protocols because they never knock on their doors.
Given the current hype in the crypto market, they also have no reason to knock on each other's doors, unless they can jointly create a new narrative.
Therefore, ERC-8004 solves a future problem.
If AI Agents evolve from toys to tools, Ethereum's trust infrastructure will have value. If the Agent economy grows large enough and cross-platform calls become the norm, ERC-8004 can collect tolls.
There are many "ifs."
Thus, for this future-oriented布局 (layout), institutions might be the first to act.
In late 2025, SharpLink Gaming announced investing $170 million into Ethereum restaking strategies. Around the same time, net outflows of ETH from exchanges exceeded 23,000 coins, flowing into private wallets and staking protocols.
This money might be betting on Ethereum 12 to 18 months from now.
For retail investors, however, ERC-8004 isn't a great catalyst.
Betting on ERC-8004 itself? It's an open standard with no token; you can't invest directly, only find some associated small projects. Betting on Ethereum is possible, but Ethereum's price is influenced by too many factors, with AI Agents being just one narrative.
Therefore, there is currently no clean asset that allows you to accurately bet on the proposition "AI Agents need on-chain identities."
Ethereum is not solely AI infrastructure, and Ethereum's identity anxiety won't be completely alleviated by AI. The business of issuing AI ID cards still has a long way to go.
