Ethereum developers are preparing to launch ERC-8004, a new standard designed to help software agents find each other, prove who they are, and decide who to trust when operating across different systems.
The proposal presents a simple idea. If AI agents are to process, coordinate and perform tasks autonomously, they will need persistent identities and a shared way to establish trustworthiness – just like today’s users, wallets or smart contracts.
As large companies race to deploy AI agents on-premises, most systems still rely on closed identity lists, API keys, or bilateral trust agreements. This approach works within a company, but breaks down once agents need to coordinate across suppliers, chains, or jurisdictions.
ERC-8004 defines three lightweight registries that can run on the Ethereum mainnet or layer 2 networks.
ERC-8004 will be launched on the mainnet soon.
By enabling discovery and portable reputation, ERC-8004 allows AI agents to interact across organizations, ensuring trustworthiness is everywhere.
This opens up a global market where AI services can interoperate without gatekeepers. https://t.co/Yrl0rvnSxj
——Ethereum (@ethereum) January 27, 2026
The first is an identity registry, which assigns each agent a unique on-chain identifier using an ERC-721 type token. This identifier points to a registration file that describes what the agent does, how to access it, and what protocols it supports. Ownership of the identifier can be transferred, delegated, or renewed, providing agents with portable, censorship-resistant identities.
The second is a reputation registry where customers (human or machine) can submit structured feedback about an agent’s performance. The registry stores raw signals on-chain while allowing more complex scoring and filtering off-chain. The goal is not to rank agents directly, but to expose reputation data and make it reusable across applications.
The third is the verification registry, which allows an agent to request an independent check of its work. Validators can include staking services, machine learning proofs, trusted hardware, or other verification systems. These results are stored on the blockchain so that other users can see what was checked and who checked it.
Developers involved in the proposal view it as infrastructure rather than a market. ERC-8004 does not address payments, pricing, or business models. Instead, it provides a common rail for discovery and trust, leaving monetization to higher-level protocols.
If adopted, the standard could push Ethereum further into its role as neutral infrastructure—not just for financial contracts, but also for coordinating autonomous software agents in an increasingly decentralized artificial intelligence ecosystem.
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