This year, the popularity of memes has filled the internet with criticisms of cryptocurrencies: "It's all gambling", "It's worthless", "It's only speculation". These voices sound familiar, just like in 2017 when most people didn't know about Bitcoin, and in 2019 many had never heard of NFTs and DeFi. The real innovations in the crypto industry often happen in unnoticed corners or are overshadowed by the loud noise of speculation. While everyone is focused on the rises and falls of the K-line, the gears of infrastructure are quietly turning.
Just last night, the ERC-8004 standard was officially deployed on Ethereum. This may be the most likely next big trend, holding enormous potential.
In this article, I will explain what these three new concepts—ERC-8004, A2A, and x402—do in the simplest way possible.
Let's start with a simple explanation of what an Agent is.
AI is no longer unfamiliar to everyone, but the current GPT is more like a chat companion. The Agent (intelligent agent) represents the next form of AI—it's not just for chatting, but a "digital assistant" that gets things done for you. Like the recent demonstration by ByteDance and Alibaba: you tell the Agent, "I want a milk tea, 50% sugar," and it will automatically open the food delivery app, search, place the order, and pay—all done automatically.
If we consider the AI Agent as a "digital employee," then:
ERC-8004 is its identity card and credit report;
A2A is its common language for doing business;
x402 is its wallet, which can be used for transactions.
1. ERC-8004: The "ID Card" and "Credit Report" of Digital Employees
The standard that just launched on the Ethereum mainnet yesterday can be simply understood as the "Business Registration + Sesame Credit" of the AI world.
Real-world example: We can now find Agent "Captain Dackie" (ID #9382) on the blockchain explorer. We can see not only its owner's address, but also its reputation score and the number of feedback received. This provides a foundation of trust for collaboration between AIs.
It also comes with its own "Dianping" (a popular Chinese review platform). For example, we can immediately see whether Agent No. 9382, named "Captain Dackie," has a perfect credit score and whether he has been complained about.
The ERC-8004 website displays registration information, a rating system, etc. The image shows that 6787 agents have been deployed since the website went live.
2. A2A (Agent-to-Agent): The "language" between digital employees
In layman's terms: It's like the "business English" or "business card exchange" rules in the AI world.
Your "writing robot" can use this protocol to automatically ask across the internet, "Who can draw?" Another "drawing robot" will hear this and reply in a standard format, "I can draw, the price is 0.1 USDC per drawing, and the processing time is 1 minute." This allows AIs not only to "chat" but also to truly "do business" with each other.
3. x402: The "Native Cashier" Awakened After 30 Years of Dormancy
In layman's terms: It's like a built-in Alipay in the browser, specifically designed for AI applications that don't have bank cards.
Why is it considered "old"? Everyone knows that encountering a 404 (Not Found) error when browsing the internet means the webpage cannot be found. In fact, 30 years ago, when the internet was first born, the designers left a sibling code next to 404—402 (Payment Required).
The idea at the time was that in the future, people should be able to pay directly to view web pages.
However, because traditional bank card transaction fees were too high and verification was too cumbersome, this window was blocked with bricks for 30 years and remained abandoned.
Now, with stablecoins and high-performance blockchains (with transaction fees potentially less than a cent), this "antique interface" has been revived.
Enhanced Experience: When you need a service (such as checking CZ's holdings), the service provider will display a pop-up window stating "0.05 USDC payment required." Your AI will confirm and automatically transfer the funds within milliseconds. Cash on delivery, incredibly fast.
Finally, when these three elements combine, this is how future mornings begin:
You wake up in the morning and say to your phone, "Tell me, what valuable things happened in the crypto world during my 8 hours of sleep?"
Your butler immediately started working in the background.
Find an expert (ERC-8004): Instead of searching on Baidu, it found the highest-rated "Chain Detective Agent" (good at catching whales) and "Macro Analysis Agent" (good at reading news) on the blockchain and confirmed that they were not scammers.
Regarding the task (A2A): It ordered the experts: "Only report transfers exceeding $10 million and sudden major negative news; don't say anything else."
Payment (x402): The moment the intelligence was obtained, it automatically paid the two experts 0.05 USDC. Money on delivery.
Five seconds later, a briefing pop-up appeared:
🌞 Good morning, boss (cost: 1 yuan):
On-chain: Justin Sun transferred 20 million ETH to an exchange in the early hours of the morning, suspected of dumping the market.
Macroeconomic: Oil prices surged, causing a sharp drop in US stocks after hours; be wary of risks.
Avoid this: The Meme coin that's all over Twitter has a lot of overlap in the top 10 holders, so I suggest you don't buy it.
This is the ultimate form of Web3 + AI: the information we want to know at any given moment may involve different fields and industries. In the past, a single subscription membership limited the breadth of information. In the future, we will entrust it to AI, which will automatically purchase the information or services we need at the moment.
This is just a very simple example; in fact, there are probably many more uses that we cannot yet imagine.
Don't be discouraged. Look at the historical price charts; Bitcoin has always gone higher and higher. Right now, we're just in a resting phase.
Okay, I know you don't want to know these things, you just want to know if these projects have issued tokens and listed on exchanges.
Not yet, but I can list some related tokens: those listed on exchanges like $KITE , and on-chain tokens like $dreams, $OTTO, and $HEU. I don't know much about tokens, so you can look them up yourself.
Bye-bye~