Vitalik Buterin outlines Ethereum's role as economic layer for AGI on February 9, 2026

On February 9, 2026, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared updated views on how Ethereum could become an economic infrastructure for AGI-related activity, enabling autonomous agents to transact and coordinate. He highlighted ERC-8004, zero-knowledge payments, and local LLM tooling as ways to support trust-minimized AI interactions, while also criticizing Solana's Anatoly Yakovenko for what he called an overly narrow focus on AGI. Buterin further argued that Ethereum and AGI should be guided by aligned philosophical principles, emphasizing human empowerment, security, and practical markets and governance reforms.