Ethereum bets on AI agents with ERC-8004: ETH still trades flat

Ethereum [ETH] is preparing for an important upgrade with ERC-8004, a new standard aimed at helping AI agents interact and verify each other directly on-chain.

The idea is big, but will it bring developers, activity, and eventually capital back to Ethereum’s mainnet?

What you need to know

ERC-8004 is set to be out soon—it is a new smart contract standard designed to help AI agents discover and trust each other on-chain.

According to Marco De Rossi, head of AI at MetaMask, development on the standard has now been frozen, with mainnet deployment expected midweek, likely around Thursday at 9 AM ET.

That timeline lines up with Ethereum’s official X account, which confirmed the protocol is going live “soon.” The post also said,

ERC-8004 does not require any changes to Ethereum’s core network. Instead, it gives developers a standardized way to register and validate AI agents within smart contracts.

While existing frameworks like MCP and Agent2Agent already handle communication and task coordination, they stop short of addressing discovery and reliability.

This is the gap that the upcoming upgrade is intended to bridge.

Price action looks shaky, but positioning is firm

Ethereum’s price action over the past few days has been held back, but optimistic. At press time, ETH traded near $3,025, up marginally on the day after rebounding from a dip toward the $2,900 zone earlier in the week.

That bounce came with a noticeable pickup in volume, so buyers stepped in on weakness. Pace is mixed. RSI was not in overbought territory and lacked strong bullish pressure.

Aggregated Open Interest climbed to roughly $17.05 billion, recovering from recent lows. It looks like traders are rebuilding positions, but without aggressive leverage.

Final Thoughts

• ERC-8004 will make the mainnet the settlement layer for an emerging AI agent economy.
• At press time, ETH price was steady near $3,025 with $17B+ in Open Interest.