Ethereum Foundation Starts New AI Team to Foster Agentic Payments

Ethereum developer Davide Crapis announced on Monday that the Ethereum Foundation was starting a new AI team called the dAI Team.

The team’s mission is to “make Ethereum the preferred settlement and coordination layer for AIs and the machine economy.”

Two key areas of focus are enabling AI agents and robots to conduct payments, coordination, and governance without intermediaries and creating open, verifiable, censorship-resistant alternatives to prevent AI’s future from being controlled by a few centralized entities.

Ethereum Makes AI More Trustworthy

“We believe Ethereum can be as useful for today’s AI developers as it will be for the sci-fi future,” said Crapis.

The strategic approach aims to bridge the gap between AI and blockchain communities that have traditionally worked separately.

The team also aims to collaborate with protocol and ecosystem teams to align protocol improvements with AI builder needs and fund innovative public goods to establish Ethereum as the optimal platform for AI.

“Ethereum makes AI more trustworthy, and AI makes Ethereum more useful. The more intelligent agents transact, the more they need a neutral base layer for value and reputation. Ethereum benefits by becoming that layer, and AI benefits by escaping lock-in to a few centralized platforms.”

Currently, major AI platforms are tightly controlled by profit-driven tech giants such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, and Meta.

Introducing: The dAI team

This work will strengthen Ethereum as the trust and coordination layer for AI. https://t.co/L5e3kOAwZk

— Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) September 15, 2025

The dAI team will advance the ERC-8004 standard for AI agent identity verification and trust, which is inspired by Vitalik Buterin’s defensive accelerationism (d/acc) philosophy.

The team is in its infancy at the moment, but is actively hiring as it expands.

Tom Lee Bullish on AI

Speaking on CNBC on Monday, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee said that AI moving onto the blockchain will drive Ether prices this year, reiterating his “ChatGPT moment for crypto” comments.

Lee also said in a BitMine holdings update this week that the convergence of both Wall Street moving onto the blockchain and “AI and agentic-AI creating a token economy is creating a supercycle for Ethereum.”

According to the official Ethereum website, there have been recent innovations of AI agents ranging from virtual influencers and autonomous content creators to real-time market analysis platforms on the network.