Ethereum Foundation Launches AI Team to Spearhead Decentralized AI Infrastructure

Ethereum Foundation Launches AI Team, Underscoring Network's Future Priorities - Decrypt

The long-term goal is to build decentralized AI infrastructure preventing corporate monopolization, with ongoing Silicon Valley partnerships. The Ethereum Foundation is launching a full-time team dead set on the network's latest priority: becoming not just the bedrock of the AI economy, but also of AI software development at large. The dAI team, named in a nod to Ethereum's longstanding principles of decentralization and democracy, will focus its efforts both on fostering the development of AI systems within the crypto ecosystem and on bringing top players in the off-chain AI industry onto the network. "We want to bridge the gap between blockchain organizations and AI organizations," Davide Crapis, an Ethereum core developer who will lead the dAI team, told Decrypt. The team will initially feature two other full-time roles, which the Ethereum Foundation is currently hiring for. Crapis said the Ethereum Foundation's investment in a full-time AI operation shows the organization's acknowledgement that the sector will be "key" to its long-term sustainability. "We are realizing that AI is going to be a big part of the lives of all humans," he said. "And it's going to be a large part of Ethereum usage in the future." In the near-term, the team will focus on implementing proposals like ERC-8004, which would create a standard for AI agents to seamlessly discover, verify, and transact with each other across the Ethereum ecosystem. That proposal, which Ethereum developers hope will cement the network as the de-facto settlement layer for the exploding AI agent economy, is still being finalized. It will be presented in its final form at Devconnect, an Ethereum developer conference to be held in Buenos Aires in November. Looking ahead to the future, Crapis said his team will be focused on the even larger goal of establishing a decentralized AI stack designed to "make sure the future of AI is not in the hands of a few very powerful corporations." That doesn't mean Ethereum necessarily intends on going to war with OpenAI, though. Crapis says he sees AI as Ethereum's next DeFi opportunity -- one that, after years of grassroots adoption, eventually attracts even once-hesitant centralized institutions. "The focus needs to be on building the best decentralized technology we can offer," the developer said. "Ethereum's infrastructure has so far been focused mostly on finance," he continued. "It needs to be very usable for AI as well." Already, the Ethereum Foundation's dAI team is engaged in research collaborations with major Silicon Valley companies, which Crapis said will be announced in due time.

Ethereum Foundation forms AI research team to blend blockchain, AI

The new team will be led by Ethereum Foundation research scientist Davide Crapis and will support projects that seek to create an ecosystem for humans and AI. The Ethereum Foundation announced a new AI-focused research team, aiming to blend the censorship-resistant power of blockchain with one of tech's hottest fields. Davide Crapis, a research scientist with the Foundation, said Monday that the new team will focus on developing an AI economy on Ethereum and a decentralized AI stack for developers. "Ethereum makes AI more trustworthy, and AI makes Ethereum more useful," Crapis said on X. "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." The Ethereum Foundation is staffing its newly created dAI team and is seeking an AI researcher and a project manager to drive coordination. The team will continue work initially done on ERC-8004, a proposal authored by Crapis, Marco De Rossi and Jordan Ellis that would extend the AI agent-to-agent (A2A) protocol into a trust layer for discovering and interacting with AI agents. The Foundation will support projects seeking to turn Ethereum into an ecosystem involving AI and humans, with Crapis leading the new team. AI agents have become a focal point in integrating blockchain technology and artificial intelligence. They are programs that make decisions and operate with minimal human supervision, executing transactions and functioning on behalf of their programmers. Blockchains with programmable features, like smart contracts, have become havens for these programs. AI can help manage settlements, the final step in a transaction in which assets are transferred between two parties. According to blockchain analytics company CryptoQuant, Ethereum daily smart contract calls reached 12 million on Thursday, reinforcing the blockchain's role as a programmable settlement layer. "Network activity is in expansion mode," CryptoQuant said. "Ethereum's total transactions and active addresses have reached record highs, highlighting expanding adoption across DeFi, stablecoin transfers, and token activity." Related: AI, blockchain convergence to bring 'watershed moments' in 2025 According to a tech researcher, blockchain technology can shore up the weaknesses of artificial intelligence by providing decentralization, immutability and identity verification, among other features. Different Web3 organizations are working on blending the two technologies. In 2024, Matchain announced the launch of its decentralized AI blockchain, and in February 2025, KiteAI announced the debut of an AI-driven blockchain in the Avalanche ecosystem. According to Arunkumar Krishnakumar, head of institutional growth and RWAs at Kamino Finance, AI agents and blockchain technology could redefine the digital economy.