Ethereum Foundation Positions Network as Trust Layer for AI, Says Davide Crapis

Ethereum Foundation Positions Network as Trust Layer for AI, Says Davide Crapis

The Ethereum Foundation is charting a new course for how blockchain technology integrates with artificial intelligence, positioning the network as a coordination and verification layer rather than a computational competitor to AI systems. Davide Crapis, the AI lead at the Ethereum Foundation, outlined this strategy in comments made at NEARCON 2026, arguing that Ethereum’s role in an AI-dominated future centers on preserving core crypto values like decentralization, self-sovereignty and censorship resistance.

As artificial intelligence reshapes digital activity across finance, cybersecurity and countless other sectors, the Ethereum Foundation recognizes that the network was never designed to compete with AI at the computational level. Instead, the organization sees Ethereum fulfilling a different and potentially more valuable function: providing infrastructure for AI agents to coordinate, verify outcomes and maintain trust in an increasingly automated world.

“If AI doesn’t have the properties we care about — self-sovereignty, censorship resistance, privacy — and then we use AI for everything, basically no one has those properties anymore,” Crapis said. The concern reflects a broader philosophical commitment within the crypto movement to prevent the recentralization of power as AI becomes the primary interface to the internet.

The Ethereum Foundation’s AI strategy operates on two main fronts. The first focuses on what Crapis calls decentralized AI coordination, addressing the need for autonomous AI agents to identify themselves, build trust relationships and exchange payments. Ethereum, according to Crapis, provides ideal infrastructure for this emerging ecosystem of intelligent software programs.

“Ethereum functions as a public, governance-less verification layer for AI,” Crapis explained. In practical terms, the heavy computational work of AI remains off-chain on traditional servers, while Ethereum handles the coordination layer. This includes maintaining public registries where agents can discover one another, transparent reputation histories, payment routing and cryptographic proofs that verify outcomes.

Crapis likened Ethereum’s proposed role to a decentralized version of Google Reviews combined with payment rails. The Ethereum Foundation has been involved in developing technical standards to formalize this emerging ecosystem, including a protocol for agent identity and trust known as ERC-8004. These standards are gaining adoption beyond Ethereum, suggesting that a blockchain-based coordination layer for AI agents could become industry standard even if AI computation itself remains centralized.

The second focus area of the Foundation’s AI initiative centers on integrating Ethereum’s core principles into the broader AI landscape. This effort, referred to internally as “Props AI,” emphasizes privacy, openness, censorship resistance and security as essential features for an AI-integrated future.

Privacy represents a critical component of this approach. Interactions with centralized AI services gradually generate detailed user profiles based on queries, usage patterns and behavioral data. The Ethereum Foundation aims to design AI systems that allow users to retain greater control over their data and identity. One method involves encouraging more AI processing to occur locally on users’ devices whenever possible, reducing the volume of information transmitted to centralized servers.

“We want to create a world where users retain as much data and power as possible,” Crapis said. “We just don’t give it to operators.” This philosophy reflects Ethereum’s historical commitment to user sovereignty and stands in contrast to the data collection practices common among major AI service providers.

Security concerns also underpin the Ethereum Foundation’s AI strategy. As AI systems become increasingly capable, they are likely to automate and scale cyberattacks in ways that challenge existing security defenses. Crapis predicts that near-term developments will enable AI systems to convincingly impersonate humans, effectively undermining traditional authentication methods based on human judgment.

“We will probably see hacks orchestrated by AI,” Crapis said. “The old security models break when AI can impersonate a human.” In such an environment, cryptographic keys become increasingly important as a defense mechanism, since control of a private key is mathematically verifiable and does not depend on human interpretation or judgment.

Crapis framed Ethereum’s long-term role in securing an AI-mediated world in stark terms: “In a world where AI is in the wild, we want Ethereum to be the place with the big lock. If I have the keys, I still have power.” This vision emphasizes mathematical and cryptographic certainty as a counterweight to AI systems that could otherwise consolidate control among centralized operators.

The Ethereum Foundation describes its AI initiative as one of several major priorities rather than the dominant focus of the organization. Nevertheless, the initiative reflects growing recognition within the crypto industry that artificial intelligence will fundamentally shape the next phase of internet development. If future digital interactions are mediated primarily by intelligent agents rather than human user clicks, the question of who controls the infrastructure on which those agents operate becomes crucial.

Ethereum’s strategic bet positions the network as essential middleware in an AI-dominant future, handling governance, identity verification, payment coordination and user control preservation even if Ethereum does not power the actual intelligence of AI systems themselves.

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