On January 28, Ethereum officially announced that the new AI agent standard ERC-8004 will soon launch on the mainnet. The standard introduces discovery mechanisms and portable reputations, enabling AI agents to interact securely across different organizations and systems, creating a global interoperable AI service market. This represents a critical step toward protocol-level integration of AI and blockchain.
Security Challenges: AI Agents Exiting Closed Systems
Tom Lee, Director of BitMine, noted that AI agents will increasingly operate beyond existing “walled garden” systems, introducing new security risks. In practice, determining the authenticity of commands, execution authorizations, and payment actions is a key challenge for the large-scale deployment of AI agents.
On-Chain Verification as a Trusted Anchor
Smart contract blockchains provide verifiable records of command sources, including the initiating entity, execution logic, and payment behavior, offering AI agents tamper-proof execution references and final settlement.
Within this framework, Ethereum serves not only as an execution environment but also as a trusted anchor for AI agent behavior. Through on-chain monitoring, abnormal transactions and operational patterns can be identified—this aligns with Trustformer KYT’s on-chain behavior monitoring and risk identification capabilities.
Traceable Behavior and Risk Identification
ERC-8004 facilitates AI agent circulation across organizations, making single-system risk controls insufficient. Behavior trajectories, fund flows, and interaction partners across different scenarios must be systematically analyzed. Trustformer KYT can monitor on-chain addresses, transactions, and interaction patterns, providing a quantitative perspective to understand AI agents’ real-world economic impact.
Ethereum Stability as a Foundation
Tom Lee emphasized that Ethereum has maintained 100% uptime since its inception. Continuous availability is critical for supporting automated agents, intelligent decision-making, and financial settlements. Stability, verifiability, and controllable risk are now core indicators of infrastructure competitiveness.