Ethereum aims to be settlement layer for AI agents with new decentralized infrastructure plans

The Ethereum Foundation is intensifying its efforts to broaden the blockchain’s capabilities and has unveiled a new team focused on decentralized artificial intelligence.

This initiative aims to make Ethereum a financial settlement layer and a trusted foundation for intelligent systems and secure digital interactions.

AI focus

In a Sept. 15 post on X, Davide Crapis, the dAI team lead, said the group’s mandate is to ensure that Ethereum becomes the settlement layer where autonomous agents can transact, coordinate, and build reputation without the oversight of centralized platforms.

He wrote:

“Ethereum + AI is about making sure humans keep agency and AI can reach its potential. Neutral, verifiable, censorship-resistant infrastructure means AI works for the people, all of us.”

Considering this, the initiative will revolve around two priorities: building an AI economy on Ethereum and advancing a decentralized AI stack.

The priority focuses on enabling robots and AI agents to make payments and follow governance rules directly on the network. The second is aimed at ensuring that artificial intelligence systems are developed with open, verifiable, and censorship-resistant infrastructure rather than proprietary silos.

Crapis stressed that the relationship between Ethereum and AI is symbiotic because the blockchain network can make AI more trustworthy, while the technology can make the second-largest crypto more useful.

He emphasized that as intelligent agents grow in number and sophistication, they will require a neutral blockchain layer to anchor value and reputation. In turn, Ethereum benefits by becoming that base layer, while AI systems gain freedom from the control of centralized technology companies.

Notably, the Ethereum Foundation is already extending this vision through work on ERC-8004, a proposed standard that enables AI agents to prove their trustworthiness and conduct transactions securely.

To achieve its goals, the dAI team plans to collaborate with ecosystem projects and academic researchers at the intersection of blockchain and AI.

According to him:

“We’ll work side by side with both the Protocol and Ecosystem teams at the EF. Linking protocol improvements with the needs of AI builders, and funding innovative public goods that will make Ethereum the best home for AI.”

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