blog: AI agents identities in crypto

blog/2026-08-17-ai-agent-identities-in-crypto/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
+---
+slug: ai-agent-identities-in-crypto
+title: 'AI Agent Identities in Crypto - Everything You Need To Know'
+authors: [push]
+image: './cover-image.webp'
+description: "Learn what ERC8004 is and what makes it a revolutionary standard for defining, identifying and tracking the reputation of onchain AI agents"
+text: "Learn what ERC8004 is and what makes it a revolutionary standard for defining, identifying and tracking the reputation of onchain AI agents"
+tags: [Key Features, Deep Dives]
+twitterId: "2089372640834417130"
+---
+
+![Cover Image of AI Agent Identities in Crypto](./cover-image.webp)
+
+<!--truncate-->
+
+Consider an open marketplace of thousands of AI agents. Where one agent can employ other agents to coordinate given tasks.
+
+Let's say agent A is looking for an agent that provides smart contract auditing services.
+
+Another agent, say agent B, says *"I can analyze this smart contract for $5."*
+
+Now on what basis would Agent 'A' decide whether Agent 'B' is the best choice for the job?
+
+Can't just assume word for word, right !?
+
+Agent 'A' still needs answers to questions like:
+
+- Is this the correct agent?
+- Has anyone used it before?
+- Did previous tasks succeed?
+- Can another system verify its work?
+
+It all boils down to one empirical question: **How should we (humans) and agents find and trust other agents?**
+
+This is exactly what ERC-8004 solves.
+
+## What is ERC-8004?
+
+[ERC-8004](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-8004) is an Ethereum standard for discovering agents and creating trust signals about them.
+
+It gives AI agents a common on-chain system for identity, reputation, and validation. Its goal is to let agents work across different organizations without pre-existing trust.
+
+ERC-8004 consists of three main components (or registries):
+
+1. Identity Registry
+2. Reputation Registry
+3. Validation Registry
+
+**Caveat:** ERC-8004 does not put a complete AI agent onchain. The agent can still run on a server, in a Trusted Execution Environment, or in another computing system.
+
+The blockchain stores the parts that need a common and public source of truth.
+
+## Decoding ERC-8004 Registries
+
+### Identity Registry
+
+The Identity Registry gives each agent a unique on-chain identity. This identity is minted as an ERC-721 NFT.
+
+Each registered agent gets an **agentId**. The NFT owner controls the agent identity. The owner can also transfer the identity to another owner.
+
+This NFT points to a JSON file, also commonly known as an **Agent Card**, which includes all the metadata about the agent, including its name, service endpoints (A2A, MCP), payable address, functionalities and more.
+
+### Reputation Registry
+
+The Reputation Registry stores feedback about an agent's past performance.
+
+Any client can submit feedback for a registered agentId. The agent owner and approved operators cannot review their own agent.
+
+Feedback can be provided in two ways: **Numerical** and **Categorical (tags)**.
+
+For numerical, example:
+
+```
+Quality       = 87 / 100
+Uptime        = 99.77%
+Success Rate  = 89%
+Response Time = 560 ms
+```
+
+And categorical tags could be: `"uptime"`, `"month"`
+
+**Caveat:** ERC-8004 does not define one universal reputation score.
+
+It stores standardized feedback signals. Applications can decide how to filter, weight, and combine them.
+
+### Validation Registry
+
+Provides a standardised mechanism for evaluating and recording the agent's work as an onchain verifiable evidence.
+
+The registry stores independent checks of an agent's work.
+
+The registry does not check the work itself. A separate validator does the check. The registry records: What was checked, who checked it and what the result was.
+
+## How does ERC-8004 work?
+
+![Diagram of the ERC-8004 agent trust layer](./image-1.webp)
+
+A typical ERC-8004 flow has four stages:
+
+### Step 1: Register the agent
+
+The agent owner registers an agent in the Identity Registry, which then creates an ERC-721 token and assigns an agentId. The owner also provides an **agentURI**.
+
+You can track and discover ERC-8004 registered agents at: [8004scan.io](https://8004scan.io)
+
+### Step 2: Use the agent
+
+A client discovers the agent.
+
+The client can then call its MCP endpoint, send an A2A task, use its web service, or interact through another supported method.
+
+### Step 3: Add reputation
+
+After the interaction, the client can submit feedback to the Reputation Registry.
+
+As discussed in the article above, the Reputation Registry can accept feedback in both numerical and categorical forms.
+
+### Step 4: Validate important work
+
+Here the agent can ask a validator of its choice to vet its work. Validators can use different verification methods.
+
+For example:
+
+- Re-run the computation.
+- Use stake-secured verification.
+- Check a zkML proof.
+- Check a TEE attestation.
+
+The validator returns a value from 0 to 100.
+
+A validator can use 0 for failure and 100 for success. It can also use values between them when the result is not binary.
+
+## What ERC-8004 does not do
+
+- **ERC-8004 does not define payments.** Payment systems such as x402 can work with ERC-8004, but payments remain outside the standard.
+- **ERC-8004 does not replace MCP or A2A.** MCP provides access to tools and resources, whereas A2A supports communication and task coordination between agents. ERC-8004 adds discovery and trust around these systems.
+- **It does not guarantee an agent's safety.**
+- **Fake accounts can also try to create a false reputation.**
+
+## Why does it matter?
+
+The internet has many ways to identify people, websites, and companies.
+
+AI agents need a similar system. But agents also need something more. They need **machine-readable trust**.
+
+An agent cannot read hundreds of human reviews before every transaction. It needs structured data that software can inspect. ERC-8004 provides the foundation for this model.
+
+If you want to dig deeper into the AI x crypto rabbit hole, read about the [AI agent stack](https://push.org/blog/understanding-the-crypto-ai-agent-stack/) and [how agents transact onchain](https://push.org/blog/how-do-ai-agents-transact-onchain/).

static/content/blogtags.json

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
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@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@
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