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
Top comments (3)
Really well-written piece!! it nails how ERC-8004 could become the backbone for truly autonomous, verifiable agents on-chain. The way it pairs with Oasis’s ROFL framework is especially exciting, confidential TEE execution with on-chain attestations gives these agents real trustless power. It’s like the missing layer connecting AI logic, blockchain trust, and privacy all in one stack.
Great article! The vision of using TEEs in conjunction with ERC‑8004 to build trustless autonomous agents really opens up exciting possibilities for decentralized AI systems.
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