Compliance

Know Your Agent (KYA): AI Agent Identity, the Standards Race, and What Is Actually On-Chain

• whackur
• Blockchain
• August 27, 2026

An identity credential or an on-chain registration number is insufficient grounds to let an AI agent spend money or access data. Identifying the agent, authenticating the requester, checking its authority for this action, and deciding how much to trust past feedback are separate checks. Know Your Agent (KYA) groups these concerns under one name. ERC-8004 supplies identifiers and public trust signals; Visa TAP and identity-verification vendors offer other ways to check requests, organizations or people. The service receiving the request still decides whether to grant access. The ERC-8004 specification and Trulioo’s product description both limit what registration or verification establishes.