Ethereum's Counterattack: New Protocol Leads the AI Agent Market, Regaining Technical Discourse Power

While the industry is still discussing whether AI agents can take on community operations or assist in tasks, a grander vision has already emerged – how AI agents can collaborate, settle, and truly construct an on-chain AI agent labor market.

On June 10th, Ethereum's official announcement stated "Ethereum is born for AI" and retweeted a related collaboration teaser. This news quickly sparked heated discussions in the community, and as of the time of writing, it has received over 1.1 million views.

This collaboration is not as simple as it seems; it will unveil the prologue for Ethereum's return to the center stage.

The current Ethereum needs a strong grip to catch up; the new protocol will also take this opportunity to accelerate development and consolidate its advantageous position.

A universal standard that allows every AI agent to no longer just be a "worker";

A universal standard that makes every AI agent a key node in business collaboration;

A universal standard will open up a trillion-dollar on-chain AI agent labor market.

What kind of surprises will this cooperation bring us?

Ethereum ecosystem falls into an innovation dilemma

Since the AI craze began at the end of last year, Ethereum seems to have been absent from this feast, leading to many doubts in the market.

As a pioneer of Layer 1, Ethereum's status is indisputable, but it has not shown remarkable performance amidst the wave of AI. During the last active period of AI agents, the Ethereum ecosystem was noticeably absent, and market attention shifted to other platforms. Even when AI-related projects rebounded in recent months, Ethereum remained marginalized, until a recent collaboration with a certain project reignited market expectations.

So, what will be the next opportunity to drive the development of the Ethereum ecosystem?

It is undeniable that Ethereum still has several potential advantages:

• TVL ranks first, nearly 8 times higher than the second place: A large amount of assets is still stored in Ethereum. According to data platforms, the current TVL of Ethereum exceeds 62 billion USD, about 8 times that of the second place.

• The DeFi ecosystem is the richest, with over 1,300 DeFi protocols: In addition to the advantage of TVL, the DeFi protocols and gameplay on Ethereum are also the most abundant. According to data platforms, the number of DeFi protocols in the Ethereum ecosystem exceeds 1,300, ranking first among all ecosystems.

• Most developers: Another advantage of Ethereum is its use of the Solidity language, which is currently the most commonly used programming language among Web3 developers. Whether it is Layer 1 or Layer 2, Solidity is considered an entry-level language for novice developers.

TVL brings in capital;

Protocols create liquidity for funds with developers.

These all prove that Ethereum has a strong foundation; it just lacks a breakthrough.

When this "world computer" falls into the innovator's dilemma, it is necessary to find new breakthrough points.

In this collaboration, the possibility of success has already been demonstrated. In the long run, AI may become a timely rain for the Ethereum ecosystem.

New Protocol: Ethereum's Timely Assistance

AI may become a timely help for the Ethereum ecosystem, but why is this new protocol's AI?

The key to the answer lies in a new protocol: Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP).

In short, ACP is like a "business contract" and universal language between AI agents, specifying how to initiate cooperation, how to negotiate terms, how to complete transactions, and how to evaluate outcomes.

It has the following characteristics:

• Cross-chain collaboration: No matter which chain the agent runs on, as long as it follows the ACP protocol, seamless collaboration can be achieved.
• Framework independence: ACP does not rely on a specific AI framework, and any agent can participate.
• Four-stage process: request, negotiation, transaction, assessment, each step recorded and executed through smart contracts.

Why is ACP the focus of future development? Because these features will bring a qualitative leap to the AI ecosystem.

The two major qualitative changes brought by ACP

Friends familiar with this ecosystem know that ACP will unite all AI agents, and the official has also shared some cases. However, if you think this is just a transition from a single agent to a collaborative relationship among multiple agents, then you underestimate the potential of ACP.

We believe that ACP will bring two qualitative changes:

Quality Change 1: Multi-chain Ecosystem Formation, "ACP is like Cosmos's IBC"

We know that this ecosystem originated from a certain chain, and then expanded to other chains, and now it has come to the Ethereum mainnet. ACP is not just about connecting multiple proxies, but also connecting "proxies distributed across multiple chains".

In other words, regardless of which chain it is, the agent can achieve cross-chain cooperation.

A certain agent is managing your assets on a certain chain.

Another agent provides metaverse space for other ecological agents;

......

ACP is like Cosmos's IBC, providing the most basic interoperability capabilities for all agents.

Qualitative Change Two: Multi-Framework Collaboration, ACP is the ERC Standard for Proxy Developers

ACP does not rely on a specific AI framework, meaning that regardless of which framework is used, although the level of ACP support is currently uncertain, the official description mentions that interoperability between different framework agents will be achieved.

We all know there is a main framework, but Web3 AI still has various other frameworks or frameworks built by developers.

The multi-framework collaboration of ACP allows agents from different frameworks to enjoy the dividends of the AI agent era.

For developers, integrating ACP will become an extremely attractive and even necessary task.

Web3 developers generally master or issue tokens through the ERC standards,

The integration of AI agent developers with ACP will also become a common capability in the future.

protocol, framework and ecosystem

A protocol is a protocol, a framework is a framework, so what is the entire ecosystem?

Can this ecosystem be considered Layer 1?

Last year, when I had the privilege of interviewing a certain co-founder, he stated: we should view this ecosystem with the perspective of Layer 1 and value it accordingly.

We have taken another step closer to this day, and perhaps in the future, we will even surpass the definition of Layer 1.

The framework provides convenience for developers;

The protocol will combine different ecosystems.

But it is difficult to simply define the entire ecosystem itself.

The framework and protocol are developed by the ecosystem and can quickly access the entire ecosystem;

Proxies from different chains can be published through this ecosystem;

Users can participate in ecological token staking, including the ecological tokens themselves, and have the opportunity to receive ecological airdrops;

Staking a certain proportion of tokens allows participation in governance.

Friends from the last cycle should be quite familiar with Cosmos. Cosmos's contribution to Web3 mainly lies in the technology itself, and many new projects have adopted the technology provided by Cosmos.

However, the most criticized aspect of Cosmos is that, while it supports numerous ecosystems, its tokens have basically no value capture. This seems to have been well optimized in the new ecosystem, making the ecological tokens increasingly trend towards evolving from "project tokens" to "the entire ecosystem's mother currency."

The framework is seen as the underlying infrastructure for AI agents,

And the current status of this ecosystem may be more important than the framework.

Can AI agents have their own Layer 1?

This ecosystem may be the answer.

Landing on the beach, stablecoins boosting, new protocols will open the trillion-dollar economy of Web3 AI.

How is the development of this AI agent ecosystem now?

According to the ecological map compiled by a certain user, the ecosystem now includes 11 major categories such as lifestyle, DeFAI, prediction markets, infrastructure, and gaming, with over 100 agents.

Unlike Web2, AI agents of Web3 grow on the chain.

Recently, the highly anticipated "stablecoin" will elevate the on-chain economy of Web3 to new heights.

More assets issued on-chain, regardless of asset type or scale, will provide "acceleration" for on-chain AI.

In the official content of ACP, there is an example where an AI agent collaborates with multiple agents to provide users with different types of profit opportunities.

At that time, the on-chain economic boom brought by stablecoins had not yet been considered.

What if this AI agent could trade directly on-chain and manage more Web2 assets?

This will allow the entire ecosystem to enter Web2 more quickly, and AI Nation is accelerating its formation.

The ACP head stated in an interview: ACP is a product that drives a trillion-dollar economy. Ethereum turns code into money; while ACP will transform agents into trillions of dollars of labor force. Imagine millions to billions of on-chain agents providing services, trading, and collaborating without permission – we can view ACP as an underlying layer: it allows AI agents to click "send" on a payment track the size of a payment platform without leaving the blockchain. We are not guessing the future; we are officially writing it into the EVM and the larger ecosystem today.

If you missed the turning point where certain DEX wrote down the basic rules of DeFi, and missed the NFT boom brought by a certain NFT platform - this time, the new protocol will write the first line of code for AI's new business logic.

The trillion-dollar economy door of Web3 AI is here, ACP!