Google and Amazon bet on AI agency economy, Ethereum developers propose ERC-8004 to become the underlying cornerstone of machine networks | Analysis of ETH prospects
Tech giants Google ( Google ) and Amazon ( Amazon ) are actively laying out AI Agents - automated assistants authorized to navigate the internet quickly, representing humans or other machines to complete complex tasks. Ethereum core developer Davide Crapis believes that the Ethereum blockchain, with its payment channels, digital identity tools, and scalable multi-layer structure, is the most effective foundation to support this emerging Machine Economy. To this end, he recently proposed the ERC-8004 standard draft, aimed at establishing a unified interface for the mutual discovery, identity verification, and transactions of AI agents on-chain. The proposal has even received co-signature support from core employees of Google's Agent2Agent protocol. Developers predict that in the next 3-5 years, most of the traffic on Ethereum will come from machines, and AI agents will become the core user base of the network.
Tech giants compete in the AI agent track, infrastructure choice becomes a key issue
Tech giants like Google and Amazon are engaged in the business of predicting societal trends. In recent months, both companies have begun taking action to dominate the development of AI agents. These automated assistants are authorized to swiftly navigate the internet, completing complex tasks on behalf of their human 'masters' and other machines. The effort to build a robust AI agent economy is far from complete. However, when robots are eventually released at scale to efficiently trade with the existing economy and other machines, experts predict their productivity and output will rival that of humans. The main question looming over the development of the AI agent economy is what kind of infrastructure can best facilitate this explosion. Top think tanks in Silicon Valley and the crypto space are increasingly converging around a single, lucrative answer: Ethereum.
Three Core Advantages of Ethereum: Payment, Identity, and Trust
Ethereum's core developers recently concluded that the network is in a uniquely advantageous position to become the foundational layer for the AI agent economy, as it can provide the three key elements currently lacking in this ecosystem: Payment Rails, Identity Verification, and Trust. The team believes that within a few years, Ethereum will not only be crucial to the AI agent economy, but AI agents will become the core users of the network. "This is very important for us. This is a strategic area," said Davide Crapis, a core Ethereum developer focused on AI, this week to Decrypt. Crapis stated that he believes most of the traffic on Ethereum will come from machines in three to five years.
ERC-8004 Proposal: Establishing On-Chain Interaction Standards for AI Agents
Earlier this month, Crapis introduced ERC-8004 for the first time: an interface standard proposed for Ethereum, aimed at standardizing how AI agents discover each other on the network and establish sufficient trust to engage in economic interactions. The proposal addresses the major flaws in the existing interaction ecosystem between agents as identified by Crapis. In April of this year, Google released the Agent2Agent protocol, promising to allow AI agents to collaborate seamlessly and "drive unprecedented levels of efficiency and innovation." However, the framework has its drawbacks. First, it currently does not support payments—which is a fundamental element of a truly autonomous robotic economy. Second, it does not provide means for agents to identify and trust each other on the open internet. This means that, in practice, the protocol can only effectively facilitate interactions between agents within a single organization, and tasks that do not involve financial transactions. Crapis stated that, essentially, Ethereum can easily fill these fundamental gaps. Payment issues are immediately resolved through on-chain transactions, which AI agents have already been able to execute. As for identification and trust: this is Ethereum's specialty. For example, NFTs provide a secure means of establishing unique digital identities. ERC-8004 offers a simple framework for how AI agents can verify each other's identities on-chain.
Gaining support from Google employees, standardizing into industry consensus
If Ethereum provides the framework to support the AI agent economy, this blockchain network is not necessarily in opposition to companies like Google. On the contrary, this Silicon Valley giant is actually supporting Ethereum proposals for Crapis. One of the core employees behind Google’s Agent2Agent protocol, Jordan Ellis, is a co-author of ERC-8004. "This is a signal for me that it’s not too early," Crapis said regarding this collaboration. "This means that even in the traditional AI field, people are researching agent-to-agent payments and agent-to-agent identification." Major stakeholders in the emerging AI agent economy want to see the ecosystem standardized as universally as possible to increase its potential coverage and usability. These companies don’t necessarily have to be crypto maximalists; but if the blockchain network solves problems more easily than other methods, what’s the harm?
Perfect Use Case? The Network Built for Machines Finally Welcomes Machine Users
In the past decade, crypto projects have repeatedly struggled to achieve mass adoption, largely because they have failed to convince mainstream consumers that the pain of navigating complex Blockchain networks is worth exchanging for economic incentives or privacy benefits. However, in the upcoming era of the robotic economy, the marketing challenges of crypto technology may no longer be so fatal. Crapis, after working on AI-related projects for several years, has now returned to the Ethereum Foundation, and he firmly believes that as the AI agent economy flourishes, robots will unemotionally choose the most efficient trading environment — and that best market will undoubtedly be Ethereum. "The challenge we face is making [Ethereum] more user experience friendly (UX-friendly) for human users, trying to change their behavior," Crapis said. "But if the users are agents or machines, it becomes quite easy. Robots have no problem remembering their private keys."
The traditional economy is built for humanity, aimed at verifying human activities. On the other hand, Ethereum almost seems to be built for robots, long before they had the ability to roam the internet on their own. That characteristic, which has long been seen as a disadvantage—the intricate user experience of the network—may now finally reveal its advantages in the era of agent-driven internet.
Advantages of Multi-Layer Structure: Ethereum is considered to better support massive AI traffic.
Even in other blockchains, the Ethereum team believes that its iconic Multi-Layer Structure is in a uniquely advantageous position to absorb the massive influx of AI agent traffic that may arise in the coming years. They stated that the Base Blockchain will provide foundational security and stability to handle the surge of traffic and validate particularly high-risk transactions, while a forever customizable, scalable, inexpensive, and fast Layer-2 Networks legion will be able to manage potentially massive daily, small-scale settlements. Crapis noted that other blockchains will find it extremely difficult to bear the weight of the entire AI agent economy. "Solana, with its current design, cannot sustain a machine economy," he pointed out as an example of Ethereum's competitor networks. "They have no idea how much activity will occur on-chain once these machines start using it." This software developer predicts that once the AI agent economy fully arrives, it will redefine the functionality of Ethereum, just as decentralized finance (DeFi) did in 2020.
Next step: Improve standards and welcome the army of smart machines
Getting the Ethereum developer ecosystem to agree on standards for inter-agent interaction is a key first step in preparing for that day. Crapis stated that he intends to tweak the ERC-8004 based on feedback from community members in the coming months. However, the standard will soon be finalized to welcome the arrival of a smart, crypto-savvy army of robots. "I can't predict when this takeoff will happen," Crapis said, "but I feel we have some urgency to build for it."
Conclusion
Ethereum's strategy of deeply binding its future with the AI agent economy is a highly forward-looking bet. The emergence of the ERC-8004 proposal, along with support from core engineers at Google, indicates that the integration of blockchain and AI has moved from conceptual exploration to standard setting and practical implementation. Ethereum's seemingly complex user experience and machine-friendly characteristics may very well become its core competitive advantage in the machine economy era. If it can successfully seize this wave, Ethereum is expected to upgrade from a "world computer" to a settlement layer and trust foundation for the "machine internet." However, the realization of this vision still faces challenges, including competition from other blockchains (such as Solana), the development speed of AI agent technology itself, and the ultimate test of network scalability posed by large-scale machine transactions. In the coming years, this race for building machine economy infrastructure driven by Silicon Valley giants and crypto pioneers is worth close attention.
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Google and Amazon bet on AI agency economy, Ethereum developers propose ERC-8004 to become the underlying cornerstone of machine networks | Analysis of ETH prospects
Tech giants Google ( Google ) and Amazon ( Amazon ) are actively laying out AI Agents - automated assistants authorized to navigate the internet quickly, representing humans or other machines to complete complex tasks. Ethereum core developer Davide Crapis believes that the Ethereum blockchain, with its payment channels, digital identity tools, and scalable multi-layer structure, is the most effective foundation to support this emerging Machine Economy. To this end, he recently proposed the ERC-8004 standard draft, aimed at establishing a unified interface for the mutual discovery, identity verification, and transactions of AI agents on-chain. The proposal has even received co-signature support from core employees of Google's Agent2Agent protocol. Developers predict that in the next 3-5 years, most of the traffic on Ethereum will come from machines, and AI agents will become the core user base of the network.
Tech giants compete in the AI agent track, infrastructure choice becomes a key issue
Tech giants like Google and Amazon are engaged in the business of predicting societal trends. In recent months, both companies have begun taking action to dominate the development of AI agents. These automated assistants are authorized to swiftly navigate the internet, completing complex tasks on behalf of their human 'masters' and other machines. The effort to build a robust AI agent economy is far from complete. However, when robots are eventually released at scale to efficiently trade with the existing economy and other machines, experts predict their productivity and output will rival that of humans. The main question looming over the development of the AI agent economy is what kind of infrastructure can best facilitate this explosion. Top think tanks in Silicon Valley and the crypto space are increasingly converging around a single, lucrative answer: Ethereum.
Three Core Advantages of Ethereum: Payment, Identity, and Trust
Ethereum's core developers recently concluded that the network is in a uniquely advantageous position to become the foundational layer for the AI agent economy, as it can provide the three key elements currently lacking in this ecosystem: Payment Rails, Identity Verification, and Trust. The team believes that within a few years, Ethereum will not only be crucial to the AI agent economy, but AI agents will become the core users of the network. "This is very important for us. This is a strategic area," said Davide Crapis, a core Ethereum developer focused on AI, this week to Decrypt. Crapis stated that he believes most of the traffic on Ethereum will come from machines in three to five years.
ERC-8004 Proposal: Establishing On-Chain Interaction Standards for AI Agents
Earlier this month, Crapis introduced ERC-8004 for the first time: an interface standard proposed for Ethereum, aimed at standardizing how AI agents discover each other on the network and establish sufficient trust to engage in economic interactions. The proposal addresses the major flaws in the existing interaction ecosystem between agents as identified by Crapis. In April of this year, Google released the Agent2Agent protocol, promising to allow AI agents to collaborate seamlessly and "drive unprecedented levels of efficiency and innovation." However, the framework has its drawbacks. First, it currently does not support payments—which is a fundamental element of a truly autonomous robotic economy. Second, it does not provide means for agents to identify and trust each other on the open internet. This means that, in practice, the protocol can only effectively facilitate interactions between agents within a single organization, and tasks that do not involve financial transactions. Crapis stated that, essentially, Ethereum can easily fill these fundamental gaps. Payment issues are immediately resolved through on-chain transactions, which AI agents have already been able to execute. As for identification and trust: this is Ethereum's specialty. For example, NFTs provide a secure means of establishing unique digital identities. ERC-8004 offers a simple framework for how AI agents can verify each other's identities on-chain.
Gaining support from Google employees, standardizing into industry consensus
If Ethereum provides the framework to support the AI agent economy, this blockchain network is not necessarily in opposition to companies like Google. On the contrary, this Silicon Valley giant is actually supporting Ethereum proposals for Crapis. One of the core employees behind Google’s Agent2Agent protocol, Jordan Ellis, is a co-author of ERC-8004. "This is a signal for me that it’s not too early," Crapis said regarding this collaboration. "This means that even in the traditional AI field, people are researching agent-to-agent payments and agent-to-agent identification." Major stakeholders in the emerging AI agent economy want to see the ecosystem standardized as universally as possible to increase its potential coverage and usability. These companies don’t necessarily have to be crypto maximalists; but if the blockchain network solves problems more easily than other methods, what’s the harm?
Perfect Use Case? The Network Built for Machines Finally Welcomes Machine Users
In the past decade, crypto projects have repeatedly struggled to achieve mass adoption, largely because they have failed to convince mainstream consumers that the pain of navigating complex Blockchain networks is worth exchanging for economic incentives or privacy benefits. However, in the upcoming era of the robotic economy, the marketing challenges of crypto technology may no longer be so fatal. Crapis, after working on AI-related projects for several years, has now returned to the Ethereum Foundation, and he firmly believes that as the AI agent economy flourishes, robots will unemotionally choose the most efficient trading environment — and that best market will undoubtedly be Ethereum. "The challenge we face is making [Ethereum] more user experience friendly (UX-friendly) for human users, trying to change their behavior," Crapis said. "But if the users are agents or machines, it becomes quite easy. Robots have no problem remembering their private keys."
The traditional economy is built for humanity, aimed at verifying human activities. On the other hand, Ethereum almost seems to be built for robots, long before they had the ability to roam the internet on their own. That characteristic, which has long been seen as a disadvantage—the intricate user experience of the network—may now finally reveal its advantages in the era of agent-driven internet.
Advantages of Multi-Layer Structure: Ethereum is considered to better support massive AI traffic.
Even in other blockchains, the Ethereum team believes that its iconic Multi-Layer Structure is in a uniquely advantageous position to absorb the massive influx of AI agent traffic that may arise in the coming years. They stated that the Base Blockchain will provide foundational security and stability to handle the surge of traffic and validate particularly high-risk transactions, while a forever customizable, scalable, inexpensive, and fast Layer-2 Networks legion will be able to manage potentially massive daily, small-scale settlements. Crapis noted that other blockchains will find it extremely difficult to bear the weight of the entire AI agent economy. "Solana, with its current design, cannot sustain a machine economy," he pointed out as an example of Ethereum's competitor networks. "They have no idea how much activity will occur on-chain once these machines start using it." This software developer predicts that once the AI agent economy fully arrives, it will redefine the functionality of Ethereum, just as decentralized finance (DeFi) did in 2020.
Next step: Improve standards and welcome the army of smart machines
Getting the Ethereum developer ecosystem to agree on standards for inter-agent interaction is a key first step in preparing for that day. Crapis stated that he intends to tweak the ERC-8004 based on feedback from community members in the coming months. However, the standard will soon be finalized to welcome the arrival of a smart, crypto-savvy army of robots. "I can't predict when this takeoff will happen," Crapis said, "but I feel we have some urgency to build for it."
Conclusion
Ethereum's strategy of deeply binding its future with the AI agent economy is a highly forward-looking bet. The emergence of the ERC-8004 proposal, along with support from core engineers at Google, indicates that the integration of blockchain and AI has moved from conceptual exploration to standard setting and practical implementation. Ethereum's seemingly complex user experience and machine-friendly characteristics may very well become its core competitive advantage in the machine economy era. If it can successfully seize this wave, Ethereum is expected to upgrade from a "world computer" to a settlement layer and trust foundation for the "machine internet." However, the realization of this vision still faces challenges, including competition from other blockchains (such as Solana), the development speed of AI agent technology itself, and the ultimate test of network scalability posed by large-scale machine transactions. In the coming years, this race for building machine economy infrastructure driven by Silicon Valley giants and crypto pioneers is worth close attention.