---
title: "ERC-8004 Went Live in January. The Identity Layer for Non-Human Actors Is Being Built on Public Rails."
canonical: "https://current.tinyfish.ai/issue/27/vision/article/14088/erc-8004-went-live-in-january-the-identity"
publication: "TinyFish"
publisher: "TinyFish"
language: "en-US"
guide: "https://current.tinyfish.ai/llms.txt"
issue: 27
section: "vision"
section_name: "Vision"
published: 2026-04-29
updated: 2026-04-30
word_count: 100
source_links: 0
---

# ERC-8004 Went Live in January. The Identity Layer for Non-Human Actors Is Being Built on Public Rails.

*April 29, 2026*

[Read on the website](<https://current.tinyfish.ai/issue/27/vision/article/14088/erc-8004-went-live-in-january-the-identity>)

In January, Google, Coinbase, MetaMask, and the Ethereum Foundation shipped a shared answer to a question that enterprise infrastructure has been circling for years: how does an autonomous agent prove who it is to a stranger? ERC-8004 provides three on-chain registries for agent identity, reputation, and validation. No payments, no execution logic. Just the minimum viable layer so non-human actors can discover and evaluate each other without a pre-existing trust relationship.

SPIFFE and OAuth address similar problems inside organizational walls. ERC-8004 addresses it for the open web. The coalition behind it suggests the problem has moved from theoretical to load-bearing.

## More

- [Vision — Issue 27](<https://current.tinyfish.ai/issue/27/vision/markdown>)
- [Issue 27](<https://current.tinyfish.ai/issue/27/markdown>)
- [Publication guide](<https://current.tinyfish.ai/llms.txt>)