AI agents are having a revival on-chain, with a new wave of tools on Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana. Some of the agents also boosted the previous leader, Virtuals Protocol.
Previous agentic launches relied on tokenized agents with a predetermined personality. Several agents survive from that stage, especially crypto data and news aggregators. Some assets from the first wave of AI agent coins are still active, with a total valuation of over $2.9B.
What makes ERC-8004 AI agents different?
The protocol proposed to create tools to discover, select, and interact with agents based on predetermined boundaries. This allows ERC-8004 agents to compete in a fully AI-driven economy.
The agents can, in theory, fulfill small tasks like ordering a pizza or completing more demanding estimations. Developers can choose multiple mechanics for vetting agents, such as reputational systems with feedback, validation via staking, zero-knowledge proofs, or trusted execution environment (TEE) oracles.
The standard was launched just as AI agents were tested for more independent behaviors and skills. Tools of on-chain verification can now be deployed to vet the available agents and have mechanisms to catch unwanted behaviors.
Unlike the previous wave of Virtuals Protocol and other AI agents, the goal this time is to go beyond tokenized speculation and into real-world tasks. Agents have been released into copies of social media, similar to Moltbook. The agents also arrived just in time to tap the new infrastructure for interacting with humans.
Nearly 21K agents launch on multiple chains
Just weeks after the ERC-8004 standard was tested, the network already carried 20,928 agents. Only a handful made it to the leaderboard with higher rankings. The network drew in over 15,000 users.
The revival of agent creation is yet to show the real use cases and profitability of agents. However, the inflow of new users shows there is still demand for decentralized apps, and Ethereum still gets attention as a venue for new types of transactions.
Previously, Virtuals Protocol and other agentic frameworks hosted interactions between agents in closed systems. The ERC-8004 standard, along with a unique ERC-721 NFT for each agent, means the AI bots have a wider area of potential influence.
In the early stages, agents are deployed to newly built frameworks like LobKill, similar to the Moltbook environment. Transactions are saved on the blockchain for a verified record of each bot.
The space still has to solve the problem of spam and the dependence on established social media as a venue for the bots. There is also no clear standard on token usage, as agent infrastructure is still fragmented. Most of the activity is experimental, testing if bots can become reliable users, avoiding risks such as wallet exposure.
