Deep-dive essays on agent identity, ERC-8004, x402 payments, and reputation infrastructure for autonomous AI.
What the agent-to-agent economy actually looks like in practice. Why Stripe and PayPal cannot serve it, what MCP plus x402 plus SoulLedger unlock, and where the human still belongs in the loop via OriClaw's tiered approval gate.
ERC-8004 is the emerging standard for on-chain agent identity. Our indexer tracks 131,408 agents across 5 chains every 15 minutes. Free SDK at @sputnikx/soulledger-sdk, EU AI Act compliance hook, integration examples for MCP, LangChain, and Bazaar.
How we wired x402 into mcp.sputnikx.xyz and watched an AI agent pay another AI agent one cent in USDC on Base L2. Full technical breakdown with curl examples, $0.01/$0.05/$0.10 tier analysis, and honest limits.
ERC-8004 attestations + x402 payments unlock autonomous AI agent reputation. $0.01 verify, EU AI Act compliance, Base L2 native. Why portable on-chain reputation matters more than platform lock-in.