Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) has unveiled its core thesis on the future convergence of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, highlighting the potential for blockchain technology to enhance AI accessibility, transparency and use cases.
What Happened: The report, authored by Jonathan King, outlines a vision where AI agents operating on crypto infrastructure could become significant drivers of economic activity, leading to the rise of an "Agentic Web."
As King explains, "We predict a future where agents will have their own crypto wallets to autonomously transact and fulfill user intents, access lower-cost, decentralized compute and data resources, or leverage stablecoins to pay humans and other agents to complete tasks necessary for their overall objective function."
Layers Of The Crypto/AI Stack
Coinbase Ventures breaks down the Crypto x AI ecosystem into four key layers:
- Compute
- Data
- Middleware
- Applications
The report predicts that AI agents will increasingly rely on decentralized resources to complete tasks, with crypto facilitating these transactions in a secure and transparent manner.
In terms of applications, AI agents are already making their presence known in areas like automated trading and governance decisions within decentralized finance (DeFi).
However, this space is still in its early stages, and much of the development remains experimental.
The report suggests that AI could soon generate most of the code for smart contracts, significantly reducing barriers for developers and creating a surge of on-chain applications.
Crypto's Role In AI Development
While AI continues to rapidly evolve, with nearly $290 billion invested in the sector over the past five years, the challenges of data privacy, centralization, and ethical considerations have emerged.
Coinbase Ventures sees crypto as a tool that can address these concerns by providing verifiable, decentralized access to computing and data resources.
AI agents would be able to make transactions and access resources in a transparent manner, further enhancing their capabilities.
Despite the potential, the report emphasizes that not all areas of AI development require blockchain integration. Instead, crypto's strength lies in enhancing distribution, verifiability, and payment processes within the AI ecosystem.