Ethereum Foundation forms ‘dAI’ team to make Ethereum a base layer for the AI economy
The Ethereum Foundation has created a new "dAI" team led by core developer Davide Crapis to accelerate work at the intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchains.Crapis said the unit’s mandate is twofold: make Ethereum "the preferred settlement and coordination layer for AIs and the machine economy," and build a decentralized AI stack so the future of AI “doesn’t rely only on a handful of entities."In the near term, this group will focus on a new ERC-8004 standard for AI agent identity and transactions slated to debut at Devconnect in November. No timeline beyond the Devconnect reveal was provided.As autonomous software increasingly triggers payments, signs messages, and calls onchain services, reliable identity and policy enforcement become gatekeepers for safety and scale. A common standard could cut fragmentation across wallets, agents, and dapps while giving developers a predictable way to prove agent provenance and behavior.ERC-8004 aims to let applications verify who an AI agent is, what rules it follows, and whether it can be trusted. The standard is supposed to standardize how AI agents and robots pay, coordinate, and enforce policy "without middlemen." In a post on X, Crapis added that the team will work across the Foundation's Protocol and Ecosystem groups, tying protocol improvements to the needs of AI builders and funding public goods projects.The developer framed the effort as "Ethereum + AI," where a neutral, verifiable base layer gives intelligent agents a shared venue for value, reputation, and rules."We believe Ethereum can be as useful for today’s AI developers as it will be for the sci-fi future," Crapis stated. "Ethereum makes AI more trustworthy, and AI makes Ethereum more useful. The more intelligent agents transact, the more they need a neutral base layer for value and reputation."The longer-term push, revolving around decentralized, censorship-resistant AI infrastructure, is the latest focus area for the EF. Recently, the organization shared its end-to-end privacy roadmap, which includes private reads/writes and proving, as well as efforts to make Layer 2s feel like a single chain via an interoperability framework.Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.