dAI Team is a dedicated, cross-functional unit within the Ethereum Foundation established to accelerate development at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology. The team's primary mission is to establish the Ethereum network as the preferred settlement and coordination layer for the emerging AI and machine economy. ^{[4] [2] [6] [7]}

Overview

The dAI Team was formed to address the growing convergence of AI and blockchain, with a dual mandate to position Ethereum as the core infrastructure for AI agents and to foster the creation of a decentralized AI stack. The initiative is based on the premise that Ethereum's inherent features—such as neutrality, verifiability, and censorship resistance—make it an ideal base layer for intelligent, autonomous systems to manage value, reputation, and rules without intermediaries. The team's name, "dAI," is a reference to the core principles of decentralization and democracy that underpin the Ethereum ecosystem. ^{[5] [8]}

A key objective of the team is to prevent the future of AI from being controlled by a small number of large, centralized corporations. By building an open and verifiable infrastructure, the dAI Team aims to provide an alternative to the dominant, closed-source AI platforms. This long-term vision involves expanding Ethereum's utility beyond its historical focus on decentralized finance (DeFi) to become a highly usable platform for AI applications and developers. The team's leader, Davide Crapis, articulated this symbiotic relationship, stating, "We believe Ethereum can be as useful for today’s AI developers as it will be for the sci-fi future. Ethereum makes AI more trustworthy, and AI makes Ethereum more useful." This vision posits that as intelligent agents become more numerous and sophisticated, they will increasingly require a neutral blockchain to anchor value and reputation. In this relationship, Ethereum benefits by becoming that foundational layer, while AI systems gain freedom from the control of centralized tech companies. ^{[4] [2] [8] [6]}

The team's strategy includes bridging the gap between traditional AI organizations and the blockchain community, onboarding major off-chain AI entities, and funding public goods projects that align with its mission. The work is guided by the principles of "d/acc" (decentralized acceleration), which emphasizes open and verifiable AI development to ensure that "humans keep agency and AI can reach its potential." ^{[2] [5] [6]}

History

The Ethereum Foundation publicly announced the formation of the dAI Team on September 15, 2025. The announcement was made by Davide Crapis, a research scientist and core developer at the foundation, who was appointed to lead the new unit. The foundation shared the news on X (formerly Twitter), amplifying Crapis's detailed post that outlined the team's mission and focus areas. At the time of its launch, the team had already begun hiring and publishing resources to accelerate research and connect AI developers with the Ethereum ecosystem. The team's first major initiative, the ERC-8004 standard, was scheduled to be presented in its final version at the Devconnect conference in Buenos Aires in November 2025, with a short-term goal of releasing the standard by the time of the event. ^{[4] [2] [5] [9] [7]}

Technology and Focus Areas

The dAI Team's work is centered on creating standards, protocols, and infrastructure to support the integration of AI with the Ethereum blockchain. Its efforts are divided into two primary focus areas: building an AI economy on Ethereum and advancing a decentralized AI stack. ^{[8] [6]}

ERC-8004 Standard

The team's most immediate priority is the development and promotion of ERC-8004, a proposed Ethereum standard for AI agent identity and on-chain transactions. The primary function of this standard is to create a common framework for AI agents to discover, verify, and interact with one another across the Ethereum network. It is designed to allow applications and smart contracts to reliably verify an AI agent's identity, the policies it operates under, and its overall trustworthiness and provenance, enabling agents to prove their trustworthiness and conduct transactions securely. ^{[4] [2] [8] [9]}

The objective of ERC-8004 is to standardize how autonomous AI agents and robots handle payments, coordinate actions, and enforce policies on-chain without relying on centralized intermediaries or gatekeepers. By establishing a predictable framework for proving an agent's behavior, the standard aims to reduce fragmentation across different wallets, AI agents, and decentralized applications (dApps). This initiative is a key part of the strategy to position Ethereum as the default settlement layer for the growing AI agent economy. ^[5]

Decentralized AI Stack

The dAI Team's long-term vision is to build a complete, decentralized AI stack. This goal addresses concerns that the future of artificial intelligence could be monopolized by a few powerful corporations that control the underlying infrastructure. Crapis stated that a core goal is to "make sure the future of AI doesn’t rely only on a handful of entities but has open, verifiable censorship-resistant alternatives." The team plans to develop the necessary infrastructure to support an open and accessible AI development environment on Ethereum, providing a viable alternative to the centralized platforms that currently dominate the industry. This initiative aims to ensure that AI systems are developed with an open, verifiable, and censorship-resistant infrastructure rather than in proprietary silos. ^{[2] [5] [8] [9]}

Ecosystem Development

In addition to protocol development, the dAI Team is tasked with fostering a broader ecosystem at the intersection of AI and blockchain. This includes funding public goods, collaborating with ecosystem projects and academic researchers, and supporting projects that align with its mission. The team will also support the development of new standards and protocol upgrades as they emerge from the community, ensuring that Ethereum's infrastructure evolves to meet the needs of AI applications. Crapis noted, "Ethereum’s infrastructure has so far been focused mostly on finance. It needs to be very usable for AI as well.” The team plans to work closely with both the Protocol and Ecosystem teams within the Ethereum Foundation to link protocol improvements directly with the needs of AI builders. ^{[2] [5] [8]}

Team

The dAI Team is led by Davide Crapis, who is identified as both an Ethereum core developer and a research scientist at the Ethereum Foundation. He is responsible for spearheading the initiative and integrating its efforts across the foundation's existing Protocol and Ecosystem Support groups. The team was established as a cross-functional, full-time unit. At its launch in September 2025, the team was planned to consist of three full-time members, with Crapis as the leader and two additional roles for which the Ethereum Foundation was actively hiring. ^{[4] [5] [6]}

Partnerships and Collaborations

As part of its mission to bridge the gap between the blockchain and AI industries, the dAI Team is reportedly engaged in research collaborations with major, though unnamed, Silicon Valley companies. Announcements regarding these partnerships are expected in the future. In addition to these external collaborations, the team will work closely with developers within the existing crypto ecosystem to build out AI-related infrastructure and applications on Ethereum. ^[5]