Ethereum devs are working on rolling out ERC-8004, a new standard that’s all about giving AI agents a way to prove who they are and build trust when they work together across different teams or companies. It’s not some huge headline-grabbing thing like a protocol upgrade, but these smaller standards have quietly powered a lot of what makes Ethereum useful.
We’ve seen this before ERC-20 basically invented how fungible tokens work and kicked off everything from stablecoins to meme coins. ERC-721 did the same for NFTs, turning digital ownership into something real for art, games, and collectibles. New ones keep popping up because builders need tools for whatever comes next, like making things talk to each other better or handling more complicated setups.
This ERC-8004 one, first dropped as a draft back in August 2025, is still getting feedback in the community as of early 2026. The core idea is pretty straightforward: set up three simple registries right on the chain (or on any L2).
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- First is the Identity Registry. It uses ERC-721 NFTs so each AI agent gets its own permanent ID. That ID links to off-chain info like what the agent can do, how to reach it, where to send payments, kind of like a tamper-proof profile that nobody can delete or fake easily.
- Then there’s a Reputation Registry. This is where feedback from jobs the agent has done gets saved forever. Over time, it builds up a track record that anyone can check.
- Last is the Validation Registry. It lets people request and log independent checks on what the agent actually did, maybe someone reruns the task, uses zero-knowledge proofs, trusted hardware, or whatever fits. The results go on-chain so others can see the proof.
The point isn’t to handle money, pricing, or the nitty-gritty of deals that stays off-chain or in other layers. It’s just providing neutral, open ways for agents to find each other, size up reliability through shared history, and team up without needing some central boss or pre-made agreements. It takes something like Google’s Agent-to-Agent setup (for basic chatting between agents) and adds this trust piece using Ethereum’s strengths.
Right now Ethereum looks healthy on the basics. Staking keeps pulling in more ETH, fewer coins sit on exchanges (people holding longer), and activity in wallets plus dApps is still climbing. That keeps it as the main spot for serious smart contract stuff.
Other chains keep bragging about being faster or cheaper to grab developers, but Ethereum’s response is always the same: keep improving the foundation so it stays the most secure and composable place for real, complex things including this whole new wave of AI agents doing automated work in finance, data, games, supply chains, you name it.
The proposal has support from folks at MetaMask, Ethereum Foundation, Google, Coinbase, and more. It’s going through the normal review on places like Ethereum Magicians. If it gets the green light and deploys, it’ll be another solid step in making Ethereum ready for machines talking and trading with machines in a decentralized way. Nothing overnight, but that’s how the network has stayed ahead for years.
