As artificial intelligence reshapes everything from finance to cybersecurity, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) is laying out a strategy for how the world’s second-largest blockchain fits into that future.
Instead of trying to fuse blockchains and AI at the level of raw computation—something Ethereum was never designed to handle—the EF sees the network playing a different role: acting as a coordination and verification layer in an increasingly AI-mediated world.
Davide Crapis, the head of AI at EF, argues that the motivation is as much philosophical as it is technical. More and more digital activity is handled by AI systems, whether answering questions, executing trades, screening applications or writing software. If these systems are controlled by centralized entities, the values that underpin much of the crypto movement—decentralization, self-sovereignty, censorship resistance, and privacy—could erode.
“If AI doesn’t have the qualities we care about — self-sovereignty, censorship resistance, privacy — and then we use AI for everything, pretty much nobody has those qualities anymore,” he told CoinDesk in an interview at NEARCON 2026.
In that sense, Ethereum’s AI push is less about competing with OpenAI or Google on model size and more about making sure that as AI becomes the interface to the Internet, it doesn’t quietly recentralize power.
The EC’s strategy rests on two broad fronts. The first is what Crapis calls decentralized AI coordination. As autonomous AI agents — software programs capable of performing tasks on their own — become more common, they will need ways to identify themselves, build trust, and exchange payments. Ethereum, he argues, is well-suited to provide that infrastructure.
“Ethereum acts as a public, governmentless verification layer for AI,” he said.
In practical terms, this means that the heavy computing work of AI remains off-chain on traditional servers. But Ethereum can help agents discover each other through public registries, assess reputation through transparent histories, route payments, and anchor cryptographic proofs that confirm results. Crapis likens it to a decentralized version of Google Reviews combined with payment rails.
The EC has been involved in developing standards to formalize this ecosystem, including an agent identity and trust protocol known as ERC-8004. According to Crapis, these standards are gaining traction beyond Ethereum, signaling that the coordination layer for AI agents may become blockchain-based, even if the AI is not.
The second area of focus is centered on bringing Ethereum’s core principles—such as privacy, openness, censorship resistance, and security—into the world of AI. Crapis refers to this effort internally as “Props AI,” short for the values that the Ethereum ecosystem has historically prioritized.
Privacy is an important part of that conversation. Interaction with centralized AI services can gradually generate detailed user profiles based on queries, usage patterns and behaviour.
From Ethereum’s perspective, the challenge is to design AI systems that allow users to retain greater control over their data and identity. One approach is to encourage more AI processing to take place locally on users’ devices when possible, reducing the amount of information that needs to be sent to centralized servers.
The broader goal is to ensure that as AI becomes embedded in everyday digital interactions, individuals still retain meaningful control over their data and how it is used, rather than handing power over entirely to large platforms.
“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.”
Security considerations also support the strategy. As AI systems become more capable, they are likely to automate and scale cyberattacks in ways that strain existing defenses. Crapis predicts a near future where AI systems can convincingly mimic humans and undermine traditional authentication methods.
“We will likely see hacks orchestrated by AI,” he said. “The old security models break down when AI can imitate a human.”
In that environment, cryptographic keys may become more important. Verification of a private key is mathematically verifiable and does not depend on human judgment. Crapis frames Ethereum’s long-term role in stark terms.
“In a world where AI is in nature, we want Ethereum to be the place with the big lock,” he said. “If I have the keys, I still have power.”
Crapis described the AI initiative that the EC is doing as one of several main priorities rather than the dominant one. Still, the move reflects a growing realization within the crypto industry that AI will shape the next phase of the Internet. If that future is mediated by intelligent agents rather than human clicks, the question becomes who controls the rails on which the agents ride.
Ethereum’s bet is that while it doesn’t power the brains of AI, it can help manage the environment in which those brains operate, anchor identity, coordinate payments, and maintain user control.
Read more: Ethereum Foundation starts new AI team to support agent payments
