Ethereum’s ERC-8004 Standard Brings Portable Identities and Reputation to AI Agents in 2025‑2026

Ethereum is preparing to deploy the ERC-8004 standard on mainnet, introducing portable blockchain identities and verifiable reputations for autonomous AI agents across platforms such as Google, Coinbase, and MetaMask. The specification, published in August 2025 and highlighted again on January 27, 2026 by Ethereum Foundation AI lead Davide Crapis, defines NFT-based agent IDs, on-chain reputation registries, and validation mechanisms using cryptographic proofs or staked verifiers. Backed by contributors from MetaMask, Coinbase, and Google’s Agent-to-Agent Protocol, ERC-8004 is designed to make Ethereum a neutral settlement and coordination layer for large-scale AI-to-AI interactions.