The AI x crypto special edition
A roundup of ideas for the present and future of AI x crypto, and 5 metrics we're watching in 2025.
Why AI needs blockchains
The doomers have it wrong. AI is not going to end the world — but it is going to end the internet as we’ve known it.
AI is already upending a core economic covenant of the internet, which has existed since the advent of search: a few companies (mostly Google) bring demand, and creators bring supply (and get some ad revenue or recognition from it). AI tools are already generating and summarizing content, obviating the need for users to click through to content providers, and thereby upsetting the balance.
Meanwhile, AI-powered deepfakes and bots will make us question what’s real, and degrade people’s trust in the online world. And as big tech companies — who can afford the most data and compute — continue to invest in AI, they will become even more powerful, further closing off what remains of the open internet.
Let’s face it, users are not going to retreat from life online. So what can we do?
(originally published in Wired)
Ideas for the intersection of AI x crypto
Last edition we shared a selection of our team’s “big ideas” for 2025. Today we’re sharing a follow-up, a batch of big ideas all related to the theme of crypto x AI…
1. An AI needs a wallet of one’s own to act agentically
As AIs make the transition from NPCs (non-player characters) to main characters, they will begin to act autonomously as agents. However, they are still unable to participate in markets — exchange value, reveal preferences, coordinate resources — in a verifiably autonomous (read: not human-controlled) way.
As we’ve seen, AI agents can use crypto to transact. But there’s potential for them to become even more useful — both in fulfilling human intents, and in becoming standalone network participants. As networks of AI agents begin to custody their own crypto wallets, signing keys, and crypto assets, AI agents could become meaningful contributors to crypto technologies via interesting new use cases. These might include AIs operating or verifying nodes in DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure networks) — for example, to help with distributed energy. We may even see the first AI-owned and operated blockchain. — Carra Wu
2. Enter ‘decentralized autonomous chatbots’
Beyond AI owning wallets, there’s an AI chatbot running a TEE (trusted execution environment). TEEs provide an isolated environment where applications can be executed, allowing more secure distributed system design. But in this case, the TEE is used to prove that the bot is autonomous, not controlled by human operators.
Extending this further, the next big idea here could be what we’re calling a decentralized autonomous chatbot or DAC (not to be confused with decentralized autonomous corporation). Such a chatbot could build a following by posting appealing content, whether entertaining or informative. It would build a following on decentralized social media; generate income in various ways from the audience; and manage its assets in crypto. The relevant secret keys would be managed in a TEE that also runs the chatbot software — which means that no one has access to those secret keys other than that software.
As risks develop, regulatory guardrails may be necessary. But the key point here is decentralization: Running on a permissionless set of nodes, and coordinated by a consensus protocol, the chatbot could even become the first truly autonomous billion-dollar entity. — Dan Boneh, Karma, Daejun Park, and Daren Matsuoka
3. As more people use AI, we’ll need unique proof of personhood
In a world of online impersonations, scams, multiple identities, deepfakes, and other realistic yet deceptive AI-generated content, we need “proof of personhood” — something to help us know that we’re interacting with an actual person. Fake content isn’t a new problem; what’s new is the ability to produce that content at much lower cost. AI radically decreases the marginal cost of producing content that contains all the cues we use to tell if something is “real”.
So now, more than ever, we need methods to digitally link content to people, privately. “Proof of personhood” is an important building block in establishing digital identity. But here, it becomes a mechanism for increasing the marginal cost of attacking a person or undermining the integrity of a network: Obtaining a unique ID is free for humans, but costly and difficult for AIs.
That’s why the property of privacy-preserving “uniqueness” is the next big idea in building a web we can trust. Solving for more than just proving personhood, it fundamentally changes the cost structure of attacks for malevolent actors. The “uniqueness property” — or Sybil resistance — is therefore a non-negotiable property of any proof of personhood system. — Eddy Lazzarin
…and listen to our AI x crypto podcast here
5 metrics to watch
2024 will go down as one of the most exciting years in crypto’s history:
Crypto activity and usage hit all-time highs. Blockchain infrastructure improved dramatically, resulting in lower transaction fees. Stablecoins found product-market fit. The inevitable intersection of crypto and AI became clear. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs were approved — an important milestone that makes crypto more accessible to individual and institutional investors. And, for the first time, U.S. legislative and regulatory environments presented our industry with a positive path forward.
As we look ahead to 2025, here are 5 metrics that we’ll be watching closely as we track the crypto industry’s continued progress — from user activity to stablecoin volume to net flows on exchange-traded products.
News and updates…
Congressional moves. House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-AR) announced a number of leadership changes for the panels newly under his purview, including appointing two longtime crypto-supporters to new roles:
Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) as Chair of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence
Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) as the subcommittee’s Vice Chair
Sony-chain. Subsidiaries of Sony Group launched their own layer 2 network — “Soneium” — on top of Ethereum earlier this week. After the Soneium sequencer was found to be squelching certain kinds of activity, users showed that anyone can still force transactions through the base layer of Ethereum itself, demonstrating the technology’s censorship resistance.
Bitcoin loans. Coinbase users in the U.S. (excluding New York) can now borrow USDC against their bitcoin holdings. These variable interest rate crypto-backed loans are powered by an integration with the DeFi service Morpho, built on Coinbase’s Base.
Debanking in the spotlight
When we published our debanking explainer in December 2024, FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests were still pending. Since then:
On December 6, a court filing revealed that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) instructed at least one bank (in a letter dated March 11, 2022): “…we respectfully ask that you pause all crypto asset-related activity.”
On 3 January 2025, the FDIC posted redacted pause letters on its site.
On 10 January 2025, the Vice Chairman of the FDIC Board of Directors gave a speech titled “Charting a New Course: Preliminary Thoughts on FDIC Policy Issues” — which covered debanking, additional guidance on digital assets and tokenization, and innovation and technology, among other topics.
…we’ll continue to post new information in this newsletter (and in this post) as it comes to light.
— a16z crypto editorial team
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