Ethereum will soon roll out new AI agents standard

Network News

ETHEREUM’S NEW AI AGENT STANDARD: Ethereum developers are preparing to implement ERC-8004, a new standard designed to help software agents find each other, prove who they are, and decide who to trust when working across different systems. The proposal introduces a simple idea: If AI agents are going to autonomously execute, coordinate, and execute tasks, they need persistent identities and a shared way to build credibility—much like users, wallets, or smart contracts do today. It comes as big companies rush to deploy AI agents in-house. Most systems still rely on closed identity lists, API keys or bilateral trust agreements. It works within a firm, but breaks down once agents need to coordinate across vendors, chains or jurisdictions. ERC-8004 defines three lightweight registries that can live on Ethereum mainnet or layer-2 networks. The first is an identity registry, which assigns each agent a unique chain identifier using an ERC-721-style token. That identifier points to a registration file that describes what the agent does, how to achieve it, and what protocols it supports. Ownership of the identifier can be transferred, delegated or updated, giving agents portable, censorship-resistant identities. The second is a reputation registry, where customers—human or machine—can submit structured feedback about an agent’s performance. The register stores raw signals on-chain, while allowing more complex scoring and filtering to occur off-chain. The goal is not to rank agents directly, but to make reputation data public and reusable across applications. The third is a validation register, with which agents can request independent checks of their work. Validators may include embedded services, machine learning credentials, trusted hardware, or other authentication systems. These results are stored on the blockchain so other users can see what was checked and by whom. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.

SOLANA’S JUST PHASE IS FOCUSED ON BUILDING: Solana’s latest phase looks a lot less flashy than its memecoin-powered highlights, and that may be the goal. Armani Ferrante, CEO of crypto exchange Backpack, told CoinDesk in an interview that the Solana ecosystem has doubled down on a more sober focus over the past year: financial infrastructure. After years of experimentation while the broader crypto industry focused on NFTs, gaming and social tokens, attention is now shifting back to decentralized finance, trading and payments. “People are really starting to think of blockchains as a new kind of financial infrastructure,” said Ferrante, who will speak at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference next month. “It’s less about NFTs, less about random moonshot-like games, and much more about finance.” That shift made Solana seem dull to some outside observers, but Ferrante framed it as a sign of maturity. The network is increasingly positioning itself around high-throughput off-chain trading, market structure and settlement, which some have called “internet capital markets”. The pivot comes amid a sharp divide between crypto sentiment and traditional finance. While crypto prices remain subdued and crypto-native investors remain cautious, Ferrante said institutional interest has rarely been stronger. “If you ask anyone on Wall Street, they’ve never been more bullish,” he said, pointing to growing momentum around tokenization, stablecoins and onchain settlement.— Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

OPTIMISM STARTS VOTING ON OP TOKEN BUYBACKS: The Optimism community has begun voting on a governance proposal that ties the value of the OP token more directly to the economic performance of the Superchain, a growing network of Ethereum layer-2 blockchains built with the OP stack. If approved, the plan introduced by the Optimism Foundation will dedicate half of the ether revenue generated by the Superchain sequencer to monthly buybacks of the OP token over an initial 12-month period. The foundation said the plan represents a significant evolution for OP, which has functioned primarily as a management token, and expects it to translate into structural demand for OP. “Each transaction across each OP chain expands the base from which buybacks operate,” the proposal reads, positioning OP as a token increasingly aligned with network usage in addition to its governance role. Voting opened last week and members have 6 days to vote on the proposal. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

EF Unveils POST QUANTUM COMPUTING AS PRIORITY: The Ethereum Foundation (EF), a nonprofit organization that supports Ethereum’s development, is turning its long-running post-quantum research into public engineering, forming a dedicated “Post Quantum” team and calling the effort a top strategic priority for the network. EF researcher Justin Drake said the new group will be led by researcher Thomas Coratger, who Drake described as a key talent behind “leanVM.” Drake framed leanVM as a core part of Ethereum’s broader approach to post-quantum security, arguing that timelines are accelerating and that Ethereum should move into a build phase rather than keeping work in the background. The announcement comes as crypto markets have become more sensitive to quantum risk headlines, even as the practical threat remains a longer-dated issue. Quantum computing uses new types of processors that could one day break today’s encryption much faster than ordinary computers. Blockchain developers worry that it could eventually expose wallet keys, forcing networks to upgrade cryptography long before that risk becomes real. The bigger problem for large networks is not a single breakthrough moment, but the time it takes to send a secure transition, update wallets and move users to new formats without breaking daily use. Drake outlined several steps in the short term. A two-week developer session focused on post-quantum transactions is expected to begin next month, led by Antonio Sanso. The agenda is aimed at user-facing defenses, including dedicated cryptographic tools within the protocol, account abstraction paths, and long-term work to merge transaction signatures using leanVM. – Shaurya Malwa Read more.

In Other News

Tether, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin, has been buying physical gold at a rate of up to two tonnes per week as it builds one of the world’s largest bullion stocks. The company’s CEO Paolo Ardoino told Bloomberg that Tether intends to continue buying gold at that rate for at least the next few months. At current prices, this equates to more than $1 billion worth of purchases each month. The purchases are delivered to a former high-security nuclear bunker in Switzerland, which Ardoino described as “a kind of James Bond place.” Tether’s gold holdings now total around 140 tons, worth an estimated $24 billion, making it one of the largest known holders of gold outside of governments, central banks and major ETFs. Most of that gold represents the company’s own reserves, while some backs its gold-backed stablecoin, which according to CoinGecko currently has a market cap of $2.7 billion. – Francisco Rodrigues Read more Stablecoins are moving beyond crypto-experimentation and into trusted financial infrastructure, OKX said, as it announced the launch of a new debit card in Europe. “Momentum is building fast,” OKX Europe CEO Erald Ghoos told CoinDesk. “Regulators are putting real guardrails in place, big banks are not only taking them seriously for payments and settlements, but are participating in industry-wide EU initiatives to become issuers, and everyday users are choosing faster, cheaper digital payments.” European regulators accelerated that momentum with the rollout of the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework, which brings stablecoin issuers and crypto service providers under a single, bloc-wide regulatory regime. Ghoos’ comments accompanied OKX’s announcement that it had rolled out a new crypto payment card in Europe, allowing users to spend stablecoins directly at Mastercard-accepted merchants. The OKX card connects self-storage wallets to real-world payments, offering fee-free spending, although a 0.4% market spread is applied at the point of conversion, and crypto rewards. Unlike most crypto cards that require manual conversions or pre-loading of funds, the OKX card lets users pay with stable coins held in their wallets. The assets are only converted at the time of purchase. Users earn crypto rewards of up to 20% during a limited promotional period. — Olivier Acuna Read more.

Regulatory and policy

The digital asset market is facing a critical fork in the road, according to crypto asset management firm Bitwise. In a blog post, the investment manager warned that stalling the Clarity Act in Congress could shift the market from a speculative bull run into a grueling “show me” phase. The Senate Agriculture Committee postponed its crypto market structure markup hearing from today until Thursday, citing the winter storm that hit much of the US over the weekend. According to Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, the Clarity Act is essential to cement a current pro-crypto regulatory environment into permanent law. Without it, the industry remains vulnerable to the whims of future administrations. Hougan pointed out that market sentiment on whether the bill will become law has soured recently. While Polymarket traders were pricing in an 80% chance of the bill succeeding in early January, this chance dropped to around 50% after figures such as Coinbase ( COIN ) CEO Brian Armstrong called the current concept unworkable. Armstrong said his firm withdrew support for a comprehensive digital assets bill after finding provisions that could harm consumers and stifle competition. Should the legislation stall, Hougan argued that crypto should follow the path of disruptive giants like Uber and Airbnb, which have survived regulatory gray areas by becoming too popular for lawmakers to ignore. — Will Canny Read More Even as the UK’s crypto regulations work their way through the system, most of the country’s banks still block their customers’ access to even registered crypto exchanges. The Financial Conduct Authority’s list of crypto-asset companies, which certify that they comply with the country’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations, now stands at 59, including exchanges such as Coinbase (COIN), Kraken and Gemini (GEMI). Yet clients looking to invest on those platforms are likely to be stymied by their banks. In a report published, lobby group UK Cryptoasset Business Council found that seven out of the top 10 exchanges operating in the country have experienced increased hostility from national banks in the past year. The remaining three said things remained unchanged. A full 80% of exchanges reported an increase in customers experiencing blockages or limits on wire transfers in 2025 and 70% described the banking environment as more hostile now than 12 months ago. The survey found that 40% of transactions were blocked or delayed. “The debanking of the UK’s digital asset economy is a major obstacle to its growth,” the group wrote in the report. “… almost all the major UK banks and payment service firms are currently imposing blanket transaction limits or complete blocks on cryptoasset exchanges. This trend is gradually getting worse – with new restrictions being implemented…”— Olivier Acuna Read more.

Calendar

10-12 February 2026: Consensus, Hong Kong Feb. 17-21, 2026: EthDenver, Denver, Feb. 23-24, 2026: NearCon, San Francisco, Mar. 30-Apr. 2, 2026: EthCC, Cannes April 15-16, 2026: Paris Blockchain Week, Paris May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, MiamiNov. 3-6, 2026: Devcon, MumbaiNov. 15-17, 2026: Solana Breakpoint, London