Over the past month, I've developed a habit of bookmarking any tweets related to AI agents that I come across while browsing X, so I can dive deeper into them later.
Over the past two weeks, I couldn't help but notice that a large number of agent announcements are not even related to the metadata of Truth Terminal / Zerebro.
For example:
Stripe released documentation on how to add payments to agent workflows.
Balaji retweeted a post from Aravind Srinivas requesting that the Perplexity browser treat agents as first-class citizens.
OtCo demonstrated an agent that formed an LLC in Delaware based on its own needs.
Circle published a detailed tutorial guiding developers on how to integrate USDC into various agents.
Satya Nadella just recently demonstrated Copilot Workspace, the first integrated development environment (IDE) tailored for agents.
Okay, you might be thinking... this is nothing special, right?
Of course, these major tech companies discussing agents is entirely expected. After all, who isn't talking about it?
But that's precisely my point - it's the first time I feel like the crypto consumer circle we're in is discussing the same things as other tech industries. The presentation may be different, but the core concepts certainly fall under the same category.
It seems the potential incoming SEC chair may take a completely opposite stance towards the crypto industry.
Regardless of who ultimately takes office, one thing is clear: the Trump administration has explicitly stated they will be more proactive in embracing the crypto industry, compared to the previous administration. Of course, to be fair, the bar wasn't exactly high.
In my election week article "Where Did Fairshake PAC's $133 Million Go?", I mentioned that Republican candidate Bernie Moreno raised $40.1 million in his Ohio Senate race, defeating Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown.
Finally, the mere discussion of the possibility of the federal government incorporating Bitcoin into its balance sheet is already mind-blowing! Three months ago, anyone bringing up this topic would have been considered delusional. However, with the recent surge in crypto market prices and the massive inflows into BlackRock ETFs, we can't help but seriously consider the real possibility of the federal government adding Bitcoin to its assets.
So, how does this regulatory news relate to crypto technology crossing the chasm and entering broader tech adoption?
One key point is that developers from other tech fields have always had concerns about the uncertainty surrounding the crypto industry. They fear that integrating this seemingly unstable technology into their careers could expose them to massive legal risks, such as lawsuits or fines, making crypto technology seem impractical for them.
However, as the new administration begins to embrace crypto technology and provide clear regulatory policies, this situation will quickly change. Developers from other fields will gradually feel more comfortable exploring the potential of crypto technology strategically.
Hopefully, over the next four years, pro-crypto policymakers will make their best efforts to enable non-crypto individuals to adopt this technology in a simple and secure manner.
The Accelerationist Bubble
Last week, I read Packy's article "The Trump Bubble", where he proposed that the next four years will be a period of venture capital, foresight, and futurist optimism.
I must clarify that I don't entirely agree with the article's viewpoints - some parts feel overly excited and exaggerated. However, Packy did raise some valuable points, suggesting that we will see a shift in the atmosphere around how we think about progress. The future will feel faster, crazier, and more experimental.
This phenomenon is referred to as the inflection point bubble, as described by Byrne Hobart and Tobias Harris.
Inflection point bubble: "Investors believe the future will be substantially different from the past." You can think of it as the dot-com bubble. If you believe the future will be different from the past, then you'll invest in the things you think will benefit the most from that difference.
The reason I bring this up is that I believe blockchain, rather than traditional venture capital, may become the financial backbone of the next inflection point bubble.
In the spirit of agent futures, I'll let Truth Terminal explain the reasoning:
If you don't want to read the content below, here's the key takeaway:
I'm not saying I think 90% of the current meme coins have succeeded - on the contrary, this format is still very new, and we won't see meme coins that can truly compete with what people traditionally consider "good investments" until we start to see some truly clever token economics.
As the hype around energy, AI, biotech, and gaming continues to build, it's possible that the combination of AI agents and crypto tokens could be more efficient and better able to experiment with new ideas than traditional methods.
Here is the English translation:Imagine this. If you were a nuclear engineering expert with decades of experience in the energy industry, wanting to realize your own vision, you might have to spend months convincing venture capitalists to accept your idea, build a team, form a community, and so on.
But you can also do this:
Write a white paper detailing your background, papers, plans, and vision.
Deploy a "brand agent" on Twitter to help spread your ideas.
Raise initial funding through a token offering.
Collaborate with agents to build a real fan community (i.e., social tipping).
Develop your team from this community, and you can also use bounty mechanisms to incentivize contributions.
I know what you're thinking! What I just described is basically the 2017 ICO craze. And I would say, you're absolutely right. But I think maybe ICOs just came a little too early.
In my view, some changes, such as improved crypto infrastructure, a supportive regulatory environment for crypto, market maturity, and institutional adoption, are indeed meaningful!
That said, the framework I mentioned earlier will certainly produce thousands of meaningless projects. But how is that different from the "power law" that venture capitalists have always talked about?
My view is: We haven't yet seen truly high-execution founders from other tech domains really try to realize their visions through crypto-driven financing.
2017 certainly didn't. And in 2024, we might see some early DePin and DeSci projects.
But as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I'm starting to feel a certain overlap between the focus areas of the crypto space and other tech domains.
Not just proxies, but also topics like bioscience research and GPU allocation.
I haven't delved deeply into pump.science, but I'm not surprised it's become one of the hottest topics in this space. Undoubtedly, the issues of speculation, legality, and security around it need to be addressed over time (and I hope anyone in the crypto space would acknowledge that). But the key point to emphasize is that people are generally excited about the concept of crypto-financing for non-crypto tasks.
The key insight is that the crowdsourcing model has been validated since the early days of Kickstarter in the 2010s. Having the wisdom and support of the masses is far superior to closed-door meetings. People want to be involved!
But perhaps it's because the technology and social consensus required for this model take time to develop. And now, it seems the perfect storm is forming: positive changes in political governance + the increasing maturity of crypto and AI technology + the acceleration of the hype bubble leading to a surge of ideas.
However, even so, I think there's still something missing for this concept to be taken seriously!
Landmark Crypto-Driven Cases
One of the coolest things about the recent on-chain AI and GOAT metadata is that it has "attracted" some AI/LLM developers into the crypto space.
I'd bet no one could have predicted the Threadguy and Andy Ayery interview.
If you step back and think about it, it's really amazing.
People like Nick Liverman (the founder of Chaos), who have dedicated their entire careers to projects involving robotics, transhumanism, and the like, are probably making more money in the past month than they have in the past decade!
It's also cool to see Beff Jezos promoting his friend Shaw, who is building the ai16z and Eliza frameworks as a launch platform for agentic tokens. The key here is not Beff, but the fact that people deeply immersed in the AI domain are experimenting with on-chain AI through LLM developers, and even have some background knowledge about the crypto space.
The key point I want to make is that in the coming year, we'll see some people from different tech verticals formally embrace crypto and demonstrate the efficiency of the proxy+token model in building large-scale projects.
Once we see a few successful case studies, others will be eager to try out their own ideas - it's just a matter of time.
For now, all we're seeing are these token launches and experiments are small-scale.
It just takes a few successful stories, and others will flock to it.
