About ERC-8004: Everything You Need to Know

Original Title: "Everything You Need to Know About ERC-8004"

Original Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

From everyday tasks to professional scenarios, AI agents are fully emerging into our lives. An era of "Agent Economy," where intelligent agents autonomously collaborate, has progressed from concept to reality.

Behind the excitement, however, a looming question remains: How can trust be established when two AI agents that have never interacted before need to collaborate? Similar to hiring a stranger as a contractor, who would check references, review past feedback, and verify qualifications, interactions between AI agents also require a reliable trust mechanism.

Against this backdrop, the ERC-8004 standard has emerged. Defined as a "trustless intelligent agent" technical standard, it serves as a unified "trust infrastructure" for the chaotic AI agent world, transforming AI agents from mere code programs into accountable, trustworthy economic participants.

What Is ERC-8004?

Simply put, ERC-8004 is a technical standard running on Ethereum, with the core objective of providing AI agents with a cross-platform, verifiable "identity + reputation + attestation" system.

The key members leading the development of this standard include Marco De Rossi, Head of MetaMask AI; Davide Crapis, AI Lead at the Ethereum Foundation; Jordan Ellis, Software Engineer at Google; and Erik Reppel, Engineering Lead at Coinbase. In the draft stage, feedback was gathered from over 80 teams, solidifying industry-wide consensus.

ERC-8004's core design is quite straightforward, relying on three on-chain "registries" (Agent Identity, Reputation, and Attestation) to support the entire trust system. These three registries are all "singleton contracts" — meaning that only one is deployed on each blockchain, and all AI agents share the same set of rules, ensuring standardization. We can think of these three registries as an AI agent's "digital ID," "credit profile," and "skill certification report," working together to address the core trust issue in AI agent interactions.

Identity Registry: AI Agent's "Digital ID"

When each AI agent registers, they are assigned a unique "Agent ID," which is essentially an ERC-721 NFT, serving as the AI agent's "digital ID."

This "ID card" contains key information — through a metadata file called a "proxy card," it records the AI agent's name, capabilities (such as "help you manage DeFi investments," "automatically generate copy"), how to contact it (supported communication protocols), its receiving wallet address, and identity systems like DID/ENS.

What's more, this identity is portable. Regardless of which platform the AI agent is working on, as long as it carries this NFT, its identity information can be quickly recognized. Plus, NFT ownership is transferable, fully controlled by the agent's owner, secure and flexible.

Reputation Registry: AI Agent's "Credit History"

Having just an identity is not enough; whether it can perform tasks and how reliable it is are key.

The reputation registry serves as the AI agent's "credit history," permanently recording every work performance on-chain, tamper-proof and undeletable.

How does it work? After having an AI agent complete a task, you can submit an evaluation, including quantitative values such as normal operation time, success rate, response quality, "efficient," "accurate" labels, and even attach an off-chain detailed evaluation link. All feedback will be permanently linked to that AI agent's identity, open for public query.

Validation Registry: AI Agent's "Skill Certification Report"

For some low-risk tasks, such as checking the weather or writing short copy, checking the reputation record might be sufficient. But for high-risk scenarios, like managing large DeFi assets, medical diagnostic assistance, positive reviews are not enough; a more authoritative "endorsement" is needed — this is the role of the validation registry.

This registry allows third-party entities (such as professional validation nodes, oracles) to independently validate the AI agent's work and record the validation results on-chain. There are many validation methods, such as using zero-knowledge proofs (zkML) to verify if the AI's computation process is correct, using a trusted execution environment (TEE) to ensure computation security, and introducing cryptographic economic penalty mechanisms.

In short, with this "skill certification report," the trustworthiness of an AI agent in high-risk scenarios will be significantly enhanced. However, this registry has not yet been deployed to the Ethereum mainnet. As the final part of a trust loop, it will promote the realization of a two-way trust guarantee where "agents dare to take orders, and users dare to make payments."

Why is ERC-8004 So Important?

Some may ask, with many AI agent platforms available today, why do we need a standard like ERC-8004?

The answer is quite clear: without a unified standard, the AI Agent Economy will always be "fragmented," unable to achieve true scalability and autonomy. Its importance is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

· Building a decentralized "Trust Layer": ERC-8004 can drive the establishment of a public trust marketplace, building a decentralized trust system from multiple dimensions such as "agent attributes," "past performance," and "task accuracy," to solve the trust interaction dilemma;

· Promoting the development of "Agent-to-Agent" and "Human-to-Agent" economies: By enabling discovery and transferable reputation, AI agents developed by different companies, different organizations can discover, hire, and make instant payments to each other without permission, breaking down collaboration barriers.

In addition, ERC-8004 will promote Ethereum to become the "Financial Layer" of AI: With the explosive growth of AI agent numbers, the high-frequency micropayments between them will bring significant transaction volume. ERC-8004 ensures that these economic activities take place within the Ethereum ecosystem, greatly increasing the network effect of ETH.

Overall, the importance of ERC-8004 lies in transforming AI from an "isolated tool" into an "economic participant," endowing AI agents with identity and reputation, and providing standardized infrastructure for the upcoming trillion-dollar AI agent economy.

ERC-8004 Ecosystem Overview: Who are the current players?

ERC-8004 launched on the Ethereum mainnet at the end of January 2026 and has also gone live on the Polygon, BNB Chain, Base, Monad, Scroll, Arbitrum, Mantle, Taiko, Gnosis Chain, Avalanche C-Chain, Celo, and MegaETH (launched on February 10) networks. The entire ecosystem now covers multiple areas such as agent frameworks, browsers, verification infrastructure, identity resolution, DeFi, and more.

Browsers / Indexers

These tools serve as the core retrieval entry point of the ERC-8004 ecosystem, providing basic services such as agent discovery, information retrieval, reputation data aggregation, etc.

8004scan

8004scan is an ERC-8004 ecosystem AI agent discovery and token reputation data tool that supports searching throughout the registry by agent name, description, skills, agent ID, or 0x address. The search results are presented in a structured manner, displaying ratings, feedback, verification information, and more.

https://www.8004scan.io/

Agentscan

Agentscan is an agent discovery and tracking tool built by the Web3 identity portal Alias. Alias was previously selected for the YZi Labs MVB Season 8 accelerator program, utilizing zero-knowledge proof technology, combining self-discovery, artificial intelligence models, and identity currency.

https://agentscan.info/

8004agents

8004agents is a comprehensive tool that integrates ecosystem news aggregation with agent discovery.

https://8004agents.ai/

trust8004

trust8004 is also an open-source browser for ERC-8004 AI agents.

https://www.trust8004.xyz/

The Graph

The Graph released an ERC-8004 subgraph across 8 chains in early February, creating a unified cross-chain trust directory. For example, an agent on Base can immediately verify the reputation of an agent on Arbitrum through subgraph queries.

Storage

These projects focus on file storage and hosting, supporting agent registration, metadata, etc., stored on-chain or on IPFS.

Filecoin

Filecoin Pin stores ERC-8004 agent registration and verification files on the Filecoin Onchain Cloud with cryptographic proofs. The Ethereum agent-building community can use Filecoin Pin to store agent identity, reputation, and metadata on-chain.

Pinata

Pinata is a cryptographic file storage project, whose IPFS API supports uploading files to public or private IPFS and simplifies the process of hosting proxy cards and registering files on IPFS.

https://pinata.cloud/

Development Framework

These projects provide developers with a standardized proxy development, deployment, and operation toolkit, reducing the barrier to entry for the ERC-8004 standard and driving the scalable implementation of ecosystem applications.

Virtuals Protocol

The Virtuals Protocol integrates ACP with ERC-8004, aiming to transform verifiable proxies into true economic participants, enabling on-chain hosting, inter-proxy transactions, and real-time registration of daily proxy transactions. All proxies that have completed Virtuals ACP certification will be automatically registered on-chain via ERC-8004.

https://app.virtuals.io/

Daydreams

Daydreams.Systems focuses on building autonomous proxies and applications on the x402 payment rail, with the ecosystem primarily consisting of the open-source proxy framework Daydreams, Daydreams Router (enabling AI model request routing through instant USDC settlement), the autonomous proxy operation platform LUCID, and the native proxy search engine XGATE.

Among them, the open-source Agent Commerce Kit in LUCID builds proxies using composable modules, supporting x402, A2A, ERC-8004, and related business protocols. This is a stack for building proxies participating in task markets, enabling proxy-to-proxy communication, and facilitating payments and receipts via x402. XGATE allows operators to quickly discover proxies.

https://x.com/daydreamsagents

ElizaOS

ElizaOS is an open-source decentralized AI Agent framework (formerly ai16z). Currently, ElizaOS's Eliza Cloud under development serves as the infrastructure for the proxy economy, supporting the construction, operation, and scalable expansion of autonomous proxies. ElizaOS is also achieving decentralized proxy discovery and coordination between proxies through ERC-8004, leveraging the x402 protocol for low-friction payments.

https://x.com/elizaOS

Verification / Accountability

EigenCloud

The EigenCloud supports an ERC-8004 Agent with Verifiable Execution (TEE), Inference Verifiability, and x402 Payment Capability.

https://x.com/eigencloud

Phala Network

The Phala Network is a decentralized computing network focused on Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). Phala offers an AI Agent template that allows developers to deploy an Agent compliant with the ERC-8004 standard in one click. Phala leverages TEE technology to provide encrypted proofs (Attestation) to the ERC-8004 "Verification Registry," proving that the Agent's code runs in a secure environment and has not been tampered with.

https://github.com/Phala-Network/erc-8004-tee-agent

ChaosChain

ChaosChain is an AI Agent Accountability Layer that introduces a comprehensive system called "Proof of Agenthood (PoA)" to measure and reward Agent contributions, providing each Agent with verifiable on-chain identity, process integrity, and adjudication outcomes.

ChaosChain is launched through a collaboration of Ethereum ecosystem developer Nethermind, decentralized AI science protocol Hetu, and Web3 AI cloud company Hyperbolic.

https://x.com/Ch40sChain

WachAI

WachAI transforms the ERC-8004 Registry into a dynamic, accountable Agent workflow system.

https://x.com/Wach_AI

Identity

ENS

The Open Agent Standard requires open identity, which is a crucial step to make Self-Sovereign Agents discoverable, verifiable, and composable in the ENS domain system.

https://x.com/ensdomains

Tooling / Orchestrating / Agentomics / Coordination

Warden

Warden is an AI Agent Infrastructure Protocol that achieved a $200 million valuation in a $4 million strategic round in January 2026, with participation from 0G, Messari, Venice.AI, among others.

Warden announced that its Warden Studio, launched in January, enables creators to build and deploy AI agents in under a minute and monetize them, integrating ERC-8004 for identity and x402 for payments, creating a verifiable trustless infrastructure.

https://x.com/wardenprotocol

Questflow

Questflow focuses on building an orchestration layer for a multi-agent economy, allowing AI agents to autonomously research, take actions, earn rewards on-chain, support multi-agent collaboration, cross Web2/Web3 service integration, and achieve agent-to-agent payments and monetization through the x402 protocol.

https://x.com/questflow

S.A.N.T.A

S.A.N.T.A, launched by Questflow, is a self-sovereign network task agent cluster that uses A2A, ERC-8004, and x402 protocols to build the x402 Facilitator Router. Agents can coordinate with each other, trigger real transactions, and achieve cross-chain trustless interactions.

https://x.com/santavirtuals

OpenServ

OpenServ supports faster agent application development with the help of the SERV engine, a visual agent builder, native x402 and ERC-8004 integrations, and its proprietary reasoning framework, BRAID.

https://x.com/openservai

AWE

AWE is an AI multi-agent large-scale collaboration infrastructure, recently launching AgentBeat, an analytics hub designed specifically for ERC-8004 agents. As agents run on-chain and earn fees, AgentBeat reveals true activity, validation, and decentralization status.

https://x.com/awenetwork_ai

ampersend

ampersend is a control layer for the agent economy, building a wallet for agents and a dashboard for users. The dashboard allows users to set rules and budgets, automatically top up agents daily, control each agent and its spending, and monitor activity. ampersend is built on top of the latest open protocols and on-chain standards (such as x402 and A2A) and integrates ERC-8004. ampersend is currently in closed beta testing.

https://www.ampersend.ai/

0xGasless

0xGasless is an AI agent financial layer, backed by InfraBuidl and Avalanche Foundation in June 2025. The 0xgasless/agent-sdk provides a toolkit for developers looking to integrate the latest standards for agent identity, reputation management, and validation (ERC-8004) and combines with the x402 protocol to enable agents to interact with paid APIs and services.

https://0xgasless.com/

Heurist

Heurist is building a full-stack AI infrastructure, including Heurist Cloud (AI model access through a simple API), Heurist Mesh (agent marketplace), and Heurist Chain (ZK Layer-2 for agent payments). Mesh agents went live on the ERC-8004 registry at the end of January.

https://x.com/heurist_ai

DeFi Integration

Zyfai

Zyfai is a DeFi proxy solution that autonomously adjusts its portfolio to achieve the highest risk-adjusted return. Each rebalance generates a zero-knowledge proof to confirm correct execution and is stored in the ERC-8004 Verification Registry.

https://x.com/ZyfAI_

Ethy AI

Ethy AI is an automated trading tool that also operates a proxy and workflow marketplace where users can discover, reuse, and combine proxies created by other users. Ethy AI has leveraged Virtuals ACP and x402 for native payments and incentive mechanisms between proxies within workflows. By integrating ERC-8004, the Ethy marketplace has evolved into a trust-based proxy marketplace where reputation is built through actual usage and directly reflected in the product.

https://x.com/ethy_agent

Summary

The introduction of ERC-8004 has provided a core trust infrastructure for the decentralized development of AI agent economies.

Of course, ERC-8004 itself does not handle payments; it only deals with "who is who and how reliable." To truly form a closed-loop economy between agents (discovery → cooperation → payment → feedback to update reputation), an efficient machine-to-machine micropayment layer is still needed. The community and infrastructure projects generally see ERC-8004 + x402 as a complementary loop in the agent economy.

With the completion of multi-network deployments and the continued adoption of ecosystem projects, a new era of a trustworthy AI agent autonomously collaborating and creating value digital economy is accelerating. However, on the path to a mature agent economy, there are still some key challenges to be addressed.

Original Article Link