The Trust Stack for AI Agents: Onchain Payments, Reputation Systems, and Verifiable Computation — From x402 and MPP to ERC-8004 and EigenCloud-Style Verification

AI is gradually evolving from a passive assistant into an autonomous actor capable of executing tasks, calling APIs, and coordinating with other agents. However, for AI agents to meaningfully enter the open internet and broader economic systems, stronger models alone are not enough. They need an open, verifiable economic infrastructure layer. This talk focuses on that emerging trust stack: onchain payments, identity and reputation systems, and verifiable computation.

This session will explore how blockchain and open web protocols can support the formation of the agent economy. I argue that blockchain is a naturally compatible economic system for AI agents because it provides programmable settlement, open access, persistent identity, and verifiable execution environments.

The talk will begin with agent payment protocols, including Coinbase’s x402 and the Machine Payments Protocol jointly introduced by Tempo and Stripe. I will explain how these protocols embed payment directly into web request flows, enabling agents to make machine-native payments for APIs, data, compute, and services.

Next, I will introduce ERC-8004 as a proposed standard for agent identity, reputation, and validation. This section will discuss how agents can be discovered, paid, evaluated, and held accountable in an open network environment.

Finally, I will explore a technical area that has not yet reached full market demand, but will become increasingly important as AI systems take on higher-stakes roles: open and verifiable computation. This section will cover projects such as EigenCloud and Brevis, and examine infrastructure concepts including EigenAI, EigenCompute, TEEs, and restaking-based validation systems. The goal is to explore how deterministic inference, verifiable execution, and economic slashing mechanisms can make high-risk or financial actions performed by AI agents more trustworthy.