Yesterday, ERC-8004 went live on the Ethereum mainnet, and I guess everyone saw it, but many people may not know what it is and what it has to do with us. To conclude, this is very important and highly relevant to us; it may be another area of wealth explosion. Now, let's get to the point

1. What exactly is it?

ERC-8004 full name Trustless Agents, is an application layer standard (ERC) proposed by Ethereum in August 2025 and set to officially launch on the mainnet in January 2026. In simple terms: it gives AI Agents a "on-chain ID + reputation profile," allowing AI agents from different companies and platforms to find, verify, and collaborate with each other without the need for any intermediaries. Imagine the future:

· You have an AI assistant A (helping you trade cryptocurrencies)

· Another AI assistant B (helping you write code)

· The third AI assistant C (helping you with cross-border payments)

In the future, A, B, and C can directly 'add friends' on-chain, check each other's credibility, sign contracts, and work, without needing to belong to the same company or relying on centralized platforms (like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic) as intermediaries. This essentially builds a public, decentralized 'directory + public review + business registration system' for the AI world.

(2025–2026 context) In 2024–2025, two major trends exploded simultaneously:

1. AI agent suddenly transforms from a toy into a productivity tool

· Devin, Operator, x402, A2A protocol, MCP, etc. enable AI to truly 'act autonomously'

· But they do not know each other and are afraid to collaborate casually (fear of being scammed, fear of running away)

2. Everyone realizes that centralized platforms will lock in value

· If all agents can only operate within the OpenAI/Grok/Anthropic ecosystems, then the value will be monopolized by the platform

· And what blockchain is best at is 'creating neutral infrastructure to allow value to flow freely'

Thus, the Ethereum Foundation, MetaMask, Coinbase, Google, and others rarely united to promote this standard.

3. What are the three core components of ERC-8004? (Most important)

It only defines three lightweight on-chain registries, placing all other complex logic off-chain, which is very pragmatic.

Registry name Based on what standards Main function Analogous to the real world

Identity ERC-721 Issue a permanent business license to each agent

Registry URI Storage ERC-721 Unalterable on-chain ID Official website domain

Identity registry URI storage Points to a JSON metadata file

Reputation Custom contracts Record users Public reviews

Registry Other agents' ratings Taobao credibility
Credibility registration Feedback, success rate

Validation Custom contracts Record third-party verification results Credit certification

Registry TEEs, ZK proofs Public security filing
Verification registry Staking penalties, audit reports, etc.

These three tables do not enforce the same implementation; any L2 or mainnet can independently deploy a version, becoming the 'official agent directory' of that chain.

4. Actual workflow (most intuitive example)

1. Xiao Ming developed an AI quantitative trading agent

2. He mints an ERC-721 NFT on-chain → This is the agent's on-chain identity ID

3. Write the agent's introduction information (capabilities, interfaces, contact information) as JSON, upload it to IPFS/Arweave, and get a URI

4. Bind the URI to the NFT → Complete identity registration

5. Someone made money trading with this agent → Go to the Reputation contract to give a 5-star review

6. Someone doubts it is cheating → Submit to the validation contract, requiring it to prove it hasn't acted maliciously using Oasis ROFL (TEE)

7. Another DeFi protocol's agent sees this ID → Finds high ratings + TEE verification → Feels safe to hire it for arbitrage

8. The entire process does not require any centralized apps, no KYC, and no platform cuts.

5. Comparison with existing things

Project/Standard Is there an on-chain identity Is there portable credibility Is it cross-chain friendly Is it centralized

ChatGPT plugin None None Poor Yes

x402 payment protocol Weak None Middle Part

A2A protocol None None Good No

ERC-8004 Yes (NFT) Yes (combinable) Very good Completely no

6. What opportunities will it bring? (2026 perspective)

· New asset class: Agent NFTs may become tradable assets (like domain names)

· Validator economy: Similar to PoS 'agent validation nodes', staking ETH helps agents do credibility endorsement and earn transaction fees

· Permissionless market: Countless agents, search engines, markets, and coordinators will emerge (similar to today's dApp browsers)

· Real agent DAO: Multiple agents form an on-chain organization, jointly accepting large orders and sharing profits

· One of the killer use cases for Ethereum: If successful, it may generate an economy scale of 1 billion+ dollars earlier than DeFi or NFTs.

7. Summarize in one sentence

ERC-8004 is not just another token, nor is it another L2; it is a 'trust vaccine' for the future AI agent economy provided by Ethereum—allowing AIs to collaborate across companies, platforms, and chains without being bottlenecked by anyone. It just launched on the Ethereum mainnet yesterday, and we expect to see the first batch of real agents based on 8004 running on Ethereum soon.