The concept of autonomous agents, software that can operate, transact, and make decisions on-chain without constant human supervision has been around for a while.
However, widespread adoption has been hampered by incompatible frameworks, isolated registries, and trust assumptions.
ERC-8004 is a proposed Ethereum standard designed to address these challenges by providing a minimal yet extensible framework for agent discovery and trustless interaction.
How ERC-8004 Works
The standard defines three core registries:
- Identity: Assigns each agent a unique ID and links it to off-chain metadata describing capabilities, supported protocols, and domains.
- Reputation: Creates an on-chain audit trail of client-authorized feedback, enabling reputation tracking without storing all data on-chain.
- Validation: Supports task verification through crypto-economic staking or cryptographic proofs using Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) or zero-knowledge proofs.
By keeping the standard lean, ERC-8004 lets developers implement trust models appropriate for each use case, from social consensus for low-risk tasks to cryptographic validation for financial operations or sensitive data workflows.
Oasis’s ROFL: Enabling Trustless Execution
ROFL (Runtime Off-chain Logic) is a TEE framework built on the Oasis Protocol, enabling agents to execute off-chain computations securely and verifiably.
Key features include:
- Confidential execution: Code runs inside hardware-isolated enclaves, keeping sensitive inputs private.
- Cryptographic attestations: Outputs are verifiable on-chain, allowing other agents to trust results without relying on the developer.
- Cross-chain key management: Supports native wallet operations across EVM-compatible chains, Solana, and more, removing bridge dependencies.
ROFL essentially decouples computation from coordination: ERC-8004 handles agent registration, reputation, and discovery on-chain, while ROFL ensures that sensitive computations and transaction signing remain trustless and private.
Adoption Path and Potential
ERC-8004 is moving toward a stable v2, introducing features like NFT-based agent ownership, flexible reputation storage, and integration with payment protocols like x402. The combination of ERC-8004 and ROFL enables developers to build verifiable, cross-chain autonomous agents, laying the groundwork for new applications in DeFi, trading, gaming, and beyond.
By standardizing identity, reputation, and validation while leveraging TEE-backed execution, ERC-8004 provides a foundation for trustless agent networks that can scale across ecosystems without requiring centralized control.
References
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