ERC-8004 gathers over 20,000 "digital immigrants," becoming an AI Agent testing ground on the blockchain

Author: Nancy, PANews

Once, AI Agents were merely supporting characters in science fiction; today, they are poised to take over the real world. From simple chatbots to intelligent agents with autonomous decision-making capabilities, able to call tools across platforms and complete complex tasks, the AI Agent economy stands on the brink of explosion.

Currently, Ethereum, in need of fresh blood, is gathering a special group of "digital immigrants." With the launch of the ERC-8004 protocol, Ethereum is becoming one of the core testing grounds for AI Agents.

Over 20,000 Agents on-chain, Ethereum and Base as Major Testing Grounds

At the end of last month, ERC-8004 officially launched on the Ethereum mainnet and plans to be deployed in singleton form to all mainstream L2 networks in the coming weeks.

This is an important step in the evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem towards AI-native infrastructure. ERC-8004 introduces a discovery mechanism and a portable reputation system, enabling AI agents to interact across organizations and carry reputation records between different platforms, providing a foundational protocol for a global AI service interoperability market without a centralized gatekeeper.

According to data from 8004scan, as of February 13, the number of Agents deployed based on ERC-8004 has approached 21,000.

From the deployment landscape, ERC-8004 has covered 16 networks including Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Base, Monad, Arbitrum, and Celo, with plans to launch on networks like Plasma, Metis, and Soneium.

Among them, Ethereum remains the core stronghold, with over 11,000 Agents, occupying a significant portion; the remaining Agents are primarily distributed across Base, Gnosis, and BNB Chain, with scales mostly around a few thousand.

However, in terms of deployment rhythm, the initial Agents were mainly concentrated on the Ethereum mainnet, and as the scale expanded, new deployments gradually gathered towards Base. Overall, the Agents on ERC-8004 are largely locked within the ecosystems of Ethereum and Base. A mature development environment, liquidity depth, and user base may be key factors attracting developers.

From the perspective of participants, among these Agents, prolific teams have begun to emerge, and it is not uncommon for a single address to operate multiple Agents.

In terms of application direction, the current players in the ERC-8004 ecosystem are quite diverse, including technical Agents focused on DeFi infrastructure and on-chain tools, market analysis and investment assistants, as well as content generation and creative applications. Some Agents have even issued tokens, exploring independent economic models.

However, in terms of real interaction, the ecosystem is still in its early stages. So far, the cumulative feedback count is about 15,000, with an average of less than one feedback per Agent. This indicates that most Agents are still in the cold start phase, with actual usage and user interaction relatively limited. However, the feedback count for Base accounts for as much as 73.6%, far exceeding networks like Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Avalanche, indicating that current actual interactions and active scenarios are concentrating on Base. This may be related to the recent popularity of OpenClaw, which has ignited a wave of interest in the Agentic ecosystem on Base.

Recognition data also highlights the current head effect in the ERC-8004 ecosystem. Fewer than 10 Agents have received thousands of Stars, while most Agents are still waiting for market validation.

A noteworthy phenomenon is that most Agents now support the x402 protocol, achieving autonomous, real-time micro-payment capabilities, and beginning to become true participants in the on-chain economy, which will further drive machine collaboration and the explosion of the agent economy.

Overall, the ERC-8004 ecosystem is still in the early exploration stage, but an on-chain collaboration network for agents is beginning to take shape.

This wave of on-chain AI Agent enthusiasm is also drawing attention to many AI projects across various chains, including Chainlink, Filecoin, Render, Internet Computer, Bittensor, Virtuals, Bankr, Clawnch, and others. Meanwhile, some public chains, exchanges, and crypto projects are also increasing their layouts, such as Coinbase recently launching an AI wallet with built-in security mechanisms, Farcaster supporting OpenClaw agents to autonomously create accounts, Virtuals launching a monthly $1 million Agent incentive program, and the founder of Crypto.com acquiring ai.com at a high price to lay out AI agent business.

Making Ethereum an AI Home: Proposing Four Short-term Construction Directions

AI is the next core narrative that Ethereum is advancing towards. In September last year, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) established a dedicated dAI team with the goal of making Ethereum the infrastructure for AI development.

However, in the current rapid development of AI, Ethereum, which promotes the narrative of a "world computer," faces real challenges. The computing power of large GPU clusters far exceeds that of blockchains, and training and inferring large models seems difficult to accomplish quickly on Ethereum.

Thus, Ethereum has chosen a different strategic path for AI. It has not opted to compete with centralized giants on computing power but instead positions itself as a trust and verification base for the AI ecosystem.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin endorses the route of making Ethereum an AI home and recently shared his latest thoughts on the relationship between Ethereum and AI. He believes that the spirit of Ethereum aligns closely with the ideal development path of AI, both emphasizing the enhancement of individual freedom, decentralization of power structures, and improvement of social defense capabilities, rather than allowing centralized forces to expand indefinitely.

However, Vitalik also pointed out that Ethereum in the AI era cannot simply replicate existing solutions but should choose a differentiated innovation path, deeply integrating the values of cryptography and AI to construct a future conducive to human freedom, safety, and decentralized collaboration.

In fact, the current AI agent war has already begun and has rapidly moved from technical exploration into the deep waters of commercialization, with some well-funded accelerationists pursuing "the stronger the model, the better; the faster the progress, the safer," a trend that hides the risk of power centralization.

In Vitalik's view, the issue of AI development is not about computing power or model scale, but about directional choice. He opposes blindly accelerating without constraints and calibration mechanisms, emphasizing that the development of AI on Ethereum should adhere to two bottom lines: protecting human freedom and agency to avoid being marginalized by AI or power structures, and preventing systemic risks caused by AI losing control or an imbalance in offense and defense.

The ERC-8004 standard, which EF is focusing on promoting, has recently been implemented and can provide on-chain identity, reputation, and behavior verification for AI agents, allowing AI to prove itself on-chain while granting users choice, avoiding the monopoly of centralized platforms. This means that the past model where platforms set the rules, and AI acted as both executor and judge, will be replaced by a verifiable decentralized system, which aligns with Vitalik's emphasis on the core values of Ethereum's decentralization and resistance to censorship. Note: Vitalik depicts Ethereum's role at the intersection of AI

In terms of short-term infrastructure construction that can be implemented on Ethereum, Vitalik proposed four key directions:

First, to build trustless, privacy-friendly AI interaction tools. This includes local LLM tools, ZK API payments that support anonymity, cryptographic solutions that enhance AI privacy, and client-side verification of server-side TEE and cryptographic proofs. He pointed out that this effectively extends Ethereum's privacy roadmap to LLM computing scenarios, allowing humans to maintain control in AI interactions.

Second, Ethereum as the economic interaction layer for AI. This layer encompasses AI API calls, employment between Bots, margin mechanisms, on-chain dispute resolution, and AI reputation systems like ERC-8004. In his view, achieving payment, collateral, arbitration, and reputation management through on-chain mechanisms can make decentralized AI architectures more feasible. The economic layer here is not aimed at financializing everything but to enable multi-agent collaboration without relying on a single organization.

Third, to realize a cyberpunk-style self-verifying world. In the past, ordinary users could not audit code line by line or fully verify system security. But with local LLMs, people can have AI assist in multiple ways, including using Ethereum applications without third-party UIs, generating and verifying transactions with local models, local auditing of smart contracts, understanding formal verification (FV) proofs, and verifying the trust models of applications and protocols. This makes the idea of "complete self-sovereignty" transition from idealism to practical feasibility.

Fourth, to reshape market and governance mechanisms. Many decentralized governance and market design theories (such as prediction markets, quadratic voting, combinatorial auctions, etc.) have long been limited by human attention and cognitive abilities. The emergence of LLMs can significantly expand human judgment, making these institutional designs operationally feasible in reality.

In simple terms, Vitalik does not view AI as an isolated technological revolution but incorporates it into the larger framework of decentralized civilization construction. In this framework, AI will expand human capabilities, while cryptographic technology will constrain power structures, with the former bringing intelligence and the latter providing defense and autonomy.

In this trillion-dollar new market of AI Agents, Ethereum's new story in AI is to build an ecosystem that promotes human freedom while preventing superintelligent agents from going out of control, and simultaneously advancing the development of decentralized AI architectures.