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A new Ethereum standard called ERC 8004 is being readied for mainnet with the goal of giving autonomous AI agents a persistent on chain identity and reputation profile that they can carry between applications, companies and even different networks. The idea is to let these agents discover one another and interact without having to rely on a handful of centralized platforms that sit in the middle and vouch for who is trustworthy.
Technically, ERC 8004 is not a token but a standard built around three lightweight registries on Ethereum. The Identity registry issues each agent an NFT style identifier that can link to metadata about the software behind it. The Reputation registry records feedback and performance metrics so that other agents or users can see whether an agent has behaved reliably over time. The Validation registry points to the mechanisms that back those reputations, such as cryptoeconomic stakers, third party auditors, hardware attestation from trusted execution environments or zero knowledge proofs. Together, these components form a public trust layer that sits alongside existing agent communication protocols like Google’s Agent to Agent framework rather than replacing them.
Supporters describe ERC 8004 as a way to stop every large technology company from building its own closed agent directory and scoring system. Instead of locking identity and reputation data inside private silos, the standard keeps those records on a neutral blockchain where any wallet, agent framework or application can read them and plug them into its own logic. Several guides frame it as a universal trust layer for AI agents that is meant to enable an open, cross organizational agent economy rather than one controlled by a few dominant vendors.
The design is already being adopted beyond Ethereum mainnet. Documentation from Polygon describes an implementation of ERC 8004 on its network, using the same Identity, Reputation and Validation registries but tailored for cheaper, higher throughput environments. Other projects show how payment protocols such as Coinbase’s x402 can be paired with ERC 8004 so that one standard handles automated stablecoin payments while the other tracks which agents are allowed to act and how well they have behaved. That combination is pitched as a foundation for use cases like AI shoppers, trading bots or workflow agents that can negotiate and pay for services on their own while still being accountable on chain.
Early ecosystem metrics suggest growing interest. The authors of the standard have noted that thousands of agents have already registered identities under ERC 8004, and tools like 8004scan have appeared to help users explore and verify them. Analysts argue that if adoption continues, Ethereum’s mainnet and its companion networks could become the settlement and trust layer for a broad AI agent economy, even though ether’s price reaction so far has been muted around the time of the announcement with trading clustered near three thousand dollars and open interest steady. In that view, ERC 8004 is less about short term market moves and more about positioning Ethereum at the center of how autonomous software agents identify one another and earn trust across the internet.
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