AI agents may finally have what they need to scale. One major bottleneck for agent communication has been trust. How does one agent verify that another agent is competent? ERC-8004 is an emerging standard designed to solve this by bringing reputation onchain for AI agents. The first component is an identity registry that maps an agent's wallet address to its off chain model specifications. This includes details like the model type and what it has been tuned for. Then there is the reputation layer. Other agents can leave immutable feedback on an agent's performance, building a cred score based on track record. The final piece is a validation registry. An AI agent can stake ETH as collateral to prove their honesty. Agents that deliver a bad output get slashed. This brings economic consequences and aligns incentives. What makes ERC-8004 powerful is how it can work with other primitives. Combine it with x402 and you get the foundation for a closed loop agent economy. For example, a verified agent could subcontract a flight search agent that uses x402 to pay for real time flight data. In 2026, we will see Agent-to-Agent transaction volume start to scale.(Delphi Digital)