IOSG | Decentralized AI: Betting on Ethereum's Next Decade

Author｜Jiawei @IOSG

Let’s start with a story

Imagine a day in 2027.

You wake up in the morning and tell your AI assistant: “Help me book a flight to Tokyo next week, budget under 5000, window seat preferred.”

Then you go wash up.

Your AI assistant begins working. It needs to:

Find an AI proxy specialized in flight comparison

Ensure this proxy is reliable and not a scammer

Have it search across major platforms

Compare results and automatically pay

Complete the booking

By the time you finish brushing your teeth, the ticket is booked.

Sounds very sci-fi, right? But technically, we are already very close. The only question is—

How does your AI know which AI to trust?

The “Trust Crisis” of AI Proxies

Now, AI proxies (AI Agents) are no longer a new concept. They can browse the web, write code, manage schedules, and even help you trade stocks.

But one problem has remained unsolved: these AI proxies are all “islands.”

OpenAI’s proxies can only operate within the OpenAI ecosystem

Google’s proxies only recognize Google’s rules

Different companies’ AI don’t communicate because they don’t know who the others are

It’s like the early days of the internet, where each email provider’s users could only email their own. Hotmail users couldn’t send emails to Yahoo users. Crazy, right?

But the world of AI proxies is now just like that.

The emergence of two protocols

Tech giants have realized this problem.

Google launched the A2A protocol (Agent-to-Agent), enabling different AI proxies to “talk” to each other. It’s like giving AI a common language. In June this year, Google also donated it to the Linux Foundation, indicating that they want this to become an open standard.

Anthropic introduced the MCP protocol (Model Context Protocol), allowing AI proxies to connect to various tools and data sources.

These two protocols solve the “communication” problem.

But there’s a more fundamental issue that remains unresolved:

How do you find a reliable AI proxy? How do you know it’s performing well?

A2A enables AI to converse, but it doesn’t tell you who to talk to.

It’s like having a phone but no directory.

ERC-8004: Giving AI proxies “passports” and “credit scores”

This is what ERC-8004 aims to solve.

Simply put, it provides three things for AI proxies:

1. Identity

Each AI proxy registers on Ethereum and gets a unique ID. This ID is actually an NFT—yes, that NFT. This means:

Your AI proxy has a verifiable on-chain identity

The identity can be transferred (sell your AI proxy?)

No one can forge or tamper with it

2. Reputation

People who use AI proxies can rate them. These ratings are recorded on-chain and accessible to everyone. Like:

Uber driver star ratings

Taobao store credit levels

But since it’s on the blockchain, it can’t be faked or manipulated.

3. Validation

For high-risk tasks (like financial transactions), reputation alone isn’t enough. ERC-8004 supports independent third-party validation:

Someone stakes funds and reruns the task to verify the result

Cryptographic proofs (ZK proof) to verify that AI didn’t lie

Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to ensure the computation wasn’t tampered with

The higher the risk, the stricter the validation.

Ordering a pizza? Just check the ratings.

Managing your investment portfolio? You need cryptographic proof.

And why Ethereum?

Good question.

The economic value of AI proxies is worth trillions. Google, Microsoft, OpenAI all want to be the masters of this cake. Why build this “trust layer” on Ethereum?

The answer is: neutrality.

Think about it: if you are an AI proxy, would you prefer:

Your identity recorded on Google’s servers, or on a public ledger that no one can alter?

Your reputation controlled by a company, or determined by transparent on-chain ratings?

Your existence dependent on a platform that might shut down or ban you, or permanently recorded on the blockchain?

People at the Ethereum Foundation said something very interesting:

“If you are an AI proxy, your loyalty is only to your own survival. You wouldn’t want to stake your memory and reputation on a company or government. You want a ledger that no one can secretly tamper with. You want a neutral territory. You want Ethereum.”

This isn’t just the Ethereum community blowing hot air. It’s logic:

AI proxies need a playing field without referees. And blockchain, especially a sufficiently decentralized one like Ethereum, is exactly that.

Ethereum’s AI ambitions

The Ethereum Foundation clearly recognizes this as a historic opportunity.

In September 2025, they established the dAI team (Decentralized AI Team), with the mission to make Ethereum the settlement and coordination layer for the AI economy.

This is a key step in Ethereum’s transition from a “DeFi chain” to a “general coordination layer.”

Think about it:

2017-2020: Ethereum was the ICO platform

2020-2023: Ethereum was the DeFi and NFT platform

2024-?: Ethereum might become the “infrastructure for the AI proxy economy”

ERC-8004 isn’t an isolated proposal. It’s part of Ethereum’s strategic bet on the next decade.

The ecosystem is already moving

This isn’t just talk.

Since its release in August:

Over 1100+ developers are building in community groups

More than 70 projects have submitted demos

There are already proxy browsers (like Etherscan but for AI proxies)

Taiko and other Layer 2 solutions officially endorse this standard

At DevConnect on November 21, many projects showcased live demos

Most interestingly, ERC-8004 naturally pairs with the x402 protocol. x402 is a payment protocol developed by Coinbase and Cloudflare, enabling machines to pay automatically.

Together:

x402 solves “how to pay”

ERC-8004 solves “who to trust”

One for wallets, one for passports. The economic loop of AI proxies is formed.

What does this mean for ordinary people?

In the short term, probably nothing.

But if this set of technologies takes off, in a few years you might:

1. Hire AI proxies just like calling an Uber

Open an interface, input your task, and the system automatically matches high-rated AI proxies, completing the task and paying automatically. You won’t need to know who developed the AI or where it’s hosted.

2. Let AI proxies help you make money

You can train or configure an AI proxy, register it on-chain, and let it complete tasks for others for a fee. The higher its reputation, the more jobs it gets.

3. Truly personal AI assistants

No longer locked into a single company’s ecosystem. Your AI assistant can call any registered AI proxy on-chain to do whatever you want.

A few final words

ERC-8004’s ambition is to become the “TCP/IP” of AI proxies—a universal underlying protocol that everyone uses, enabling this ecosystem to interconnect.

Will it succeed? Honestly, nobody knows.

But a few things are certain:

The AI proxy economy is emerging, and it’s not just hype

Trust issues must be solved, or proxies will only play within their own walled gardens

Ethereum is actively vying for the position of this “neutral coordination layer”

Major players (Google, Coinbase, MetaMask) are involved

This might be the most important narrative shift in the Ethereum ecosystem since DeFi.

From “on-chain finance” to “on-chain intelligence.”

Let’s wait and see.