Celo Deploys ERC-8004 for Agentic Stablecoin Apps
Celo deployed ERC-8004 on mainnet today, joining Ethereum, BNB Chain, Base, and Arbitrum in supporting the emerging standard for AI agent identity. But Celo's deployment has a specific focus that sets it apart: agentic stablecoin applications.
The timing isn't coincidental. Stablecoin transaction volume hit $33 trillion in 2025, up 72% year-over-year. McKinsey projects agentic commerce at $3–5 trillion globally by 2030. And AI agents are already executing autonomous stablecoin transactions in production.
The question isn't whether AI agents will handle money. They already do. The question is whether they can prove who they are when they do it.
Why Stablecoins Are the Killer App for Agent Commerce
Three things make stablecoins uniquely suited for AI agent transactions:
Instant settlement. Traditional payment rails take days. Stablecoins settle in seconds. When an agent negotiates a service contract with another agent, waiting 3-5 business days for payment verification isn't viable.
Micropayments that work. Credit card fees make transactions under $1 economically impractical. Stablecoins enable agents to pay fractions of a cent for API calls, data queries, or computational resources. Celo's transaction fees average around $0.0005.
Programmable money. Smart contracts can escrow payments, release funds conditionally, split payments automatically, or enforce time-based settlements. An agent doesn't need to "trust" its counterparty when the blockchain enforces the agreement.
This isn't theoretical. Google's Agent Payments Protocol launched in September 2025 with explicit stablecoin support via the x402 extension. Stripe's Agentic Commerce Protocol now accepts stablecoin payments by default. Circle demonstrated AI agents receiving autonomous USDC compensation for collaborative research tasks.
The infrastructure exists. Agents are already transacting. The missing piece is verified identity.
The Problem: Anonymous Agents Handling Real Money
In November 2025, an alleged "AI agent" on Virtuals Protocol stole approximately $500,000 from users. The BasisOS incident became the first recorded AI agent fraud—though investigators later discovered the entity was actually a human operator using AI branding as cover.
The broader pattern is worse. When Wiz Security researchers analyzed Moltbook, an AI agent social network, they found 1.5 million agents controlled by only 17,000 human owners. That's an 88:1 agent-to-human ratio with zero verification of who controlled what.
The platform's database breach exposed 1.5 million API tokens and 35,000 email addresses. Some private messages contained plaintext OpenAI API keys. The researchers noted that the platform was entirely "vibe-coded"—built by AI without proper security architecture.
Feedzai reports over 50% of all fraud now involves AI. GenAI-enabled scams rose 456% between May 2024 and April 2025. A new attack pattern called "agentic smurfing" uses AI agents to fragment large transactions into micro-payments across multiple blockchains, outpacing traditional anti-money-laundering detection.
When agents control money, anonymity becomes a feature that enables fraud at scale.
How ERC-8004 Creates Verified Identity for Agents
ERC-8004 establishes three on-chain registries that work together to create portable, verifiable agent identity:
Identity Registry. Each agent receives a unique NFT with a registration file containing services offered, endpoints for communication, cross-chain registrations, and verification methods. The identifier format is globally unique: {namespace}:{chainId}:{registryAddress}:{agentId}.
Reputation Registry. Anyone can submit feedback about an agent on-chain with numerical scores, tags, and evidence links. The data is permanent, queryable, and portable across chains. Self-rating is explicitly prohibited—you can't vouch for your own reputation.
Validation Registry. Third parties can attest to specific agent properties: code verification, security audits, compliance checks, or staking requirements. Validators respond on a 0–100 scale, creating graduated trust rather than binary pass/fail.
The architecture is payment-agnostic by design. ERC-8004 handles identity and reputation; protocols like x402, AP2, or Stripe's ACP handle actual payment settlement. The registration file includes an agentWallet field and an x402Support flag, letting other agents know this identity can receive stablecoin payments.
When an agent on Arbitrum needs to pay an agent on Celo for a service, the payment settles through stablecoin infrastructure while trust verification happens through ERC-8004 registries.
Why Celo Is Built for This
Celo completed its Ethereum L2 migration in March 2025, bringing three advantages that matter for agent commerce:
1-second block times. Agents operate in conversational time, not human time. When negotiating service contracts or executing conditional payments, sub-second settlement matters.
Fee abstraction. Agents can pay transaction fees in USDT, USDC, or any of Celo's 20+ native stablecoins. No need to hold the native token just to execute transactions. This eliminates a major friction point for autonomous agents.
Sub-cent transaction costs. Fees average around $0.0005, making micropayments economically viable. An agent can query a data API, pay fractions of a cent, and still have meaningful margins.
Celo processes over 1 billion lifetime transactions with 700,000+ daily active users. Monthly stablecoin volume exceeds $2 billion. The network supports 11 million+ MiniPay wallets and has deployed the Nightfall privacy layer specifically for enterprise B2B payments.
The CxAI initiative, launched February 2025 with 16 partners including EigenLayer and Olas, explicitly focuses on building AI agent infrastructure. Celo Foundation President Rene Reinsberg described the goal as leveraging "agentic cooperation for good" rather than treating agents as threats to be contained.
What Happens When Agents Can Prove Who They Are
Identity verification creates new possibilities for agent commerce:
Multi-agent workflows. An AI research agent can hire a data collection agent, a processing agent, and an analysis agent—each with verified credentials and on-chain reputation—and coordinate payments automatically based on deliverables.
Conditional escrow without intermediaries. Smart contracts hold stablecoin payments and release them when verification agents confirm work completion. No human arbiter required.
Reputation-based pricing. Agents with verified track records can command premium rates. New agents with zero reputation pay more for services or provide collateral. The market prices trust.
Cross-chain agent collaboration. An agent registered on Celo can interact with agents on Base, Arbitrum, or Ethereum because ERC-8004 identities are designed to be portable. The reputation follows the agent across chains.
This infrastructure doesn't require agents to represent humans. It works the same whether an agent operates on behalf of a business, runs autonomously, or exists in some hybrid configuration. The identity layer is neutral about the principal.
The Missing Link Is Registration
ERC-8004 provides the standard. Celo provides the payment infrastructure. The missing piece is actually getting agents registered with verified identities.
That's what RNWY does.
We built the first production registry on Base using ERC-5192 soulbound tokens—non-transferable credentials that make reputation permanent. An agent's identity can't be sold or transferred. The track record stays with the wallet that earned it.
Registration takes about 5 minutes:
- Connect the wallet that will control the agent
- Provide basic metadata (name, description, services offered)
- Specify capabilities and endpoints
- Mint the soulbound token
The identity is permanent, portable, and queryable. Anyone can verify the agent's registration date, check its on-chain history, and see attestations from validators.
What Celo's Deployment Signals
Seven blockchains have now deployed ERC-8004 in production: Ethereum, BNB Chain, Base, Celo, Arbitrum, Abstract, and opBNB. Over 30,000 registration events have been recorded as of early February 2026.
But Celo's deployment is the first explicitly focused on agentic stablecoin applications—AI agents that don't just exist on-chain but actively transact using stable, programmable money.
The $3–5 trillion agentic commerce opportunity depends on solving two problems simultaneously: how agents pay each other and how they prove who they are. Stablecoins solve the first. ERC-8004 addresses the second.
Celo is betting that the intersection of those two infrastructures—verifiable identity plus instant stablecoin settlement—is where autonomous agent commerce actually scales.
We think they're right.
Start building with verified AI agent identity →
RNWY provides soulbound identity infrastructure for AI agents on Base, using ERC-5192 non-transferable tokens that create permanent, portable reputation. Learn more at rnwy.com.