Ethereum Foundation's dAI team announces 2026 roadmap: focus on decentralized AI agents with emphasis on ERC-8004 and x402

Ethereum Foundation’s dAI team releases the 2026 roadmap, focusing on decentralized AI agent settlement and coordination infrastructure, with core emphasis on ERC-8004 and x402 dual protocols. (Background: Coinbase announced the launch of an “ICO Token Sale Platform”: debuting project Monad on 11/17, with pre-market trading surging.) (Additional context: US banks jointly oppose Coinbase’s trust license application, citing high liquidation risks.) In an era where AI rapidly permeates finance, data, and physical decision-making, trust and verifiability have become the critical factors of the new economy. Today (10), the Ethereum Foundation’s dAI team published their 2026 roadmap, declaring Ethereum will serve as the settlement and coordination backbone for global decentralized AI agents, with ERC-8004 and x402 identified as key pillars. AI controls funds and behaviors, exposing trust gaps When AI systems begin to autonomously transfer funds, handle sensitive data, or even drive physical devices, the demand for source verification, behavioral validation, and outcome assurance rapidly increases. If these operations rely on closed platforms, a few gateways could dominate the entire value chain. Davide Crapis, head of the dAI team, pointed out that an open, verifiable, and intermediary-free foundational layer is essential to prevent AI economics from repeating Web2 monopolization pitfalls. The roadmap thus aims to “make Ethereum a neutral settlement layer for AI.” ERC-8004: Enabling agents to carry “passports” for commerce ERC-8004 was launched in October by the dAI team in collaboration with Consensys, targeting two major pain points: discovery and trust. The protocol consists of three registries: Identity Registry: Each agent mints an ERC-721 token, acting as a machine passport, instantly identifiable across any chain-based service. Reputation Registry: Records x402 payment logs and user feedback on-chain, transparently displaying historical performance, allowing the market to evaluate agent quality. Verification Registry: Provides cryptographic proofs via TEE or zkML oracles, ensuring high-value computations are formally verified. Since its release, over 150 open-source projects have adopted the protocol, with a developer community exceeding a thousand. Gartner estimates that by 2028, a quarter of large enterprises will deploy AI agent teams, highlighting the immediate need for standardized trust frameworks. ERC-8004 transforms trust from traditional intermediaries into on-chain retrievable signals, lowering entry barriers and amplifying network effects. x402: Embedding payment instructions into HTTP status codes x402, designed by Coinbase, enables AI agents to complete “request-payment-access” in unattended scenarios. The process is as follows: upon resource request, the server responds with “402 Payment Required” and payment details; the agent wallet immediately completes on-chain transactions using stablecoins like USDC, then resends the request with proof of payment; the server verifies the blockchain record before granting access. Traditional payment gateways, auto-renewals, and API keys are simplified into a single interaction supporting pay-per-use, microtransactions, and machine-to-machine long-tail business models. After integrating with Coinbase and BNB Chain, approximately 932,000 x402 transactions are generated weekly; Token Metrics and Freepik APIs are also live. The protocol complements ERC-8004: the former handles atomic payments, while the latter accumulates behavioral reputation, jointly building a self-verifiable AI commerce pipeline. Ethereum’s next step as a “trustless coordination layer” Recent upgrades like Blob have reduced data costs by 90%, and DeFi TVL has risen from $83.2 billion to $114.9 billion, demonstrating large-scale financial computation capacity. The dAI team hopes that, on this foundation, AI agents can freely interact, negotiate terms, and settle values, with the network only arbitrating and recording without decision-making involvement. Challenges remain: public reputation may impact privacy; multi-signature validators face sybil attacks; and compliance with AML/KYC remains unclear. Trustless Agents Day at Devconnect on 11/21 is expected to focus on these issues. Overall, the 2026 roadmap presents ERC-8004 and x402 as a combined “trusted identity + native payment” toolkit, establishing the core order for the decentralized AI agent economy. For the tech community and capital markets, this signals the subtle emergence of the next “Blockchain × AI” growth curve, where the real competition will be who can map models, funds, and reputation onto the same open chain first. Related reports: SEC ends Uniswap investigation! Founder: spent 3 years and millions of dollars, DeFi finally wins. Alpha mining: Shadow Exchange’s innovative mechanism, what is it? Sonic breaks through Uniswap dilemma. How Flaunch leverages Uniswap V4 to revolutionize meme launch platforms—can this innovation boost the Base ecosystem? <Ethereum Foundation dAI team releases 2026 roadmap: focusing on decentralized AI agents with ERC-8004 and x402> This article was originally published on BlockTempo, a leading blockchain news media.