Eigen Labs: The next growth driver of crypto will be AI capable of verification.

At the DAS London conference, J.T. Rose from Eigen Labs argued that the next wave of crypto is not DeFi but rather “AI verification” — agentic systems ( that can demonstrate off-chain work is accurately done on-chain.

Rose describes the Eigen platform as a “decentralized cloud” consisting of three layers — data, computation, and inference ) — secured by cryptocurrency economic mechanisms and cryptographic proofs, enabling developers to retain the flexibility of cloud computing while adding verification before funds or states are updated to Ethereum.

According to Rose, the three most promising applications are:

1. The automated trading agent can prove compliance with the risk rule;
2. Agent-to-agent payment (A2A), where the receipt for the job activates the payment;
3. Game results can be verified.

He emphasized: “The biggest limitation of AI in the next decade is trust. Without a mechanism to ensure AI can be verified throughout — from training, reasoning to identity — we will not be able to enter the era of autonomous agents.”

David Sneider, co-founder of Lit Protocol, shares the view that trust in AI requires “guardrails and policies” to help control the behavior of agents. In Lit's design, users can issue commands like “Send email or buy Bitcoin”; the system will then check the policies in the Lit network; if the conditions are met, the network manages the key (TEE + MPC) to allow the action to be executed.

When combined:

• Lit answers the question: “Is this agent allowed to act?”
• EigenCloud or Google AP2 verification: “Are off-chain computation results trustworthy?”

Rose stated that this ecosystem can be scaled using TEE, zk-proof, and slashing mechanisms, while aiming to publish compliance proofs according to standards such as ERC-8004 for AI agents to interact across applications without the need for re-auditing.

The amount of ETH restaking on EigenLayer remains stable at 2–3 million ETH, reinforcing confidence in the project's security model.

Both Rose and Sneider view Ethereum as a neutral anchor of trust, believing that the era of consumption is approaching: “Soon, everyone will have an 'AI fund manager' in their pocket,” Sneider said.

If the components — mobile protection mechanisms and provable computing capabilities — are perfected, AI verification could become the next growth driver of the crypto market, occurring right on Ethereum.