Author: imToken
Do you think the era of AI "super individuals" in Web3 will benefit DAOs?
Over the past decade, the Web3 world has believed that collective intelligence can create fairer organizational structures, and DAOs are the most typical embodiment of this concept, where strangers from around the world collaborate openly to participate in decision-making and governance.
However, the emergence of AI is quietly influencing this premise.
When an individual can simultaneously possess multiple AI Agents capable of automatically conducting research, executing trades, managing assets, and even participating in governance, the work that originally required a DAO or a team is now being compressed into a new unit: "individual + AI."
This raises a new question: Will this benefit DAOs and the entire Crypto world?
1. AI Exponentially Amplifies "Individual Capabilities"
Over the past year, the evolution of AI has been almost exponential.
From initial chat assistants to today's AI Agents capable of writing code, conducting research, and automatically executing tasks, a clear trend is emerging: individual capabilities are being amplified exponentially.
It can be said that today, an ordinary person, with the help of AI, can accomplish many tasks that previously required team collaboration, such as analyzing on-chain data, organizing research information, and even automatically executing arbitrage or DeFi strategies.
In other words, AI is compressing much of the work that originally required teams into the combined unit of "individual + AI." This also explains why more and more Web3 projects are beginning to discuss the new concept of "AI-native organizations"—in such organizational structures, humans are responsible for goals and judgment, while AI handles execution and collaboration.
And DAOs, in essence, are the earliest experimental ground for this model.
As is well known, DAOs have aimed to solve a problem from their inception: how to enable collaboration among strangers globally. However, the reality is that DAO governance and operations have always faced several challenges: low information processing efficiency, complex decision-making processes, and high time costs for participants.
The emergence of AI恰好 provides new solutions to these problems. For example, AI can automatically organize proposals and governance discussions, generate voting analysis reports, execute certain on-chain operational tasks, and manage community information flow. Ultimately, by involving AI in the governance process, the core team of a DAO can become extremely small, but overall efficiency can be significantly improved.
This is also an important intersection of AI and Web3: DAOs decentralize organizations, while AI automates execution.
2. The New Trend of AI Agent + Wallet
However, for AI to truly participate in the on-chain economy, three key capabilities are needed: asset custody, transaction execution, and trusted settlement.
And these three things are precisely what blockchain excels at.
As mentioned earlier, on September 15, 2025, the Ethereum Foundation established an artificial intelligence team called "dAI," with the core mission of dedicating resources to defining standards, incentives, and governance structures for AI models on the blockchain, including model trustworthiness—that is, how to make AI behavior verifiable, traceable, and collaborative in a decentralized environment.
ERC-8004 is being advanced as one of the core standards in this context. Unlike payment protocols like x402, ERC-8004 does not directly address "how money is transferred" but attempts to answer a more fundamental question: How can AI Agents be identified, trusted, and participate in economic collaboration without platform endorsement?
It is for this reason that the lineup promoting ERC-8004 is particularly impressive: led by the Ethereum Foundation's dAI team, with joint participation from Google, Coinbase, and MetaMask, it almost encompasses the three key entry points of AI, trading, and wallets. This level of involvement itself signals that it is not an application-layer experiment but a clear bet on long-term infrastructure (extended reading: "The New Ticket in the AI Agent Era: What Is Ethereum Betting On by Promoting ERC-8004?")
An intuitive metaphor might make it easier to understand: if ERC-8004 is the "ID card" for AI, then the wallet is the "account and execution terminal" for AI. After all, for AI to truly participate in economic activities, it must be able to manage assets, pay fees, and sign authorizations.
Traditional wallet interfaces are designed for humans—we need to stare at the screen and click to confirm. But interactions in the AI world are millisecond-level, high-frequency, and massive, which has given rise to the new form of "Agent Wallet," making wallets gradually become an asset interface and execution terminal for AI:
- Non-Custodial Authorization: You can create an independent, restricted sub-wallet for your AI Agent, which can autonomously trade within the limits you set (e.g., no more than 500 USDC per transaction) without requiring manual confirmation each time. The master key remains in your hands, and the AI is merely your authorized agent;
- Cross-Chain Asset Management: AI can query your assets on over 100 chains in real-time and perform rebalancing, staking, or arbitrage according to your set strategies. You are freed from tedious daily monitoring and can focus on higher-level strategic decisions;
- Human-Machine Collaboration: This is not about complete hands-off management but supports flexible confirmation mechanisms—for example, automatic for small amounts, reminders for large amounts. AI is responsible for discovering opportunities and constructing trades, while you are responsible for the final button. This model also perfectly combines human judgment with AI execution efficiency;
From this perspective, it can be said that computing power is not the endgame for AI; wallets are the true entry point to the AI economic system.
Because stablecoins like USDT and USDC are inherently the currency prepared for AI—they are borderless, programmable, and capable of instant settlement, perfectly meeting AI's极致 pursuit of "high speed, low cost, and frictionlessness."
From this angle, when AI economic activities begin to operate in milliseconds, the only things capable of supporting this pace are the on-chain currencies and wallets of the Crypto world.
3. Ethereum: The Emerging AI Financial Infrastructure
For this reason, more and more developers are beginning to see Ethereum as the financial infrastructure for AI.
A recent noteworthy data point is that Ethereum's staking queue has exceeded 3.8 million ETH, meaning that more and more funds are entering the network to maintain security and earn returns.
In short, from DAO collaboration to on-chain intelligent agents, to wallets serving as asset interfaces for AI, Ethereum is gradually evolving into the underlying infrastructure for the AI economy.
In the AI era, such stable infrastructure is crucial because AI Agents may need to automatically manage assets, automatically participate in DeFi, and automatically execute transactions in the future, and these behaviors all rely on a trusted, decentralized settlement layer.
Currently, Ethereum remains the most mature choice.
As the author has previously emphasized, what is being争夺 here is a more subtle new label for Ethereum: the underlying清算 layer for AI collaboration. In this vision, AI Agents from different platforms, different chains, and different organizations can operate in their respective environments, but when they need to establish trust, custody value, or settle outcomes, they will ultimately return to a commonly recognized neutral layer.
It can be said that this new role aligns highly with the positioning Ethereum has gradually formed in the global financial system. It does not seek to be the fastest execution layer nor attempts to cover all application scenarios but long-term occupies a more fundamental position: a trusted settlement and order layer.
Overall, in this structure, blockchain is not just a financial system but may also become the trusted infrastructure for the AI economy, and Ethereum may be standing at the center of the stage.
The combination of AI and the crypto world is far more than a simple technological overlay. From the organizational form of DAOs to the infrastructure of Ethereum, to the integration of AI Agents and wallets, a new path is becoming clear: individual capabilities are amplified, organizational structures are reshaped, with AI responsible for execution and blockchain负责 settlement.
In the coming years, we are likely to see more and more AI-driven on-chain economic activities, and Ethereum and wallets may become the key入口 connecting humans, AI, and the on-chain world.
We wait and see.
