I read an article about AI recently — and I understood why it's so compelling.
The text breaks the usual framework.
We always thought:
crypto is about freeing people from banks.
But what if it was never about people at all?
Let's calmly break down the logic.
What does an autonomous AI agent need to be an economic participant?
– Receive payments
– Pay for resources (compute, API, data)
– Settle payments with other agents
– Operate 24/7
– Conduct instant settlements
– Not depend on humans
– Use programmable money
Now, re-read that list.
That is literally the architecture of crypto ☝️
An AI cannot open a bank account.
No passport.
No SSN.
No KYC.
No physical presence.
The banking system is built around humans as bearers of legal personality.
AI is not human.
But a wallet?
Generate a key.
Get an address.
Start receiving payments.
Peer-to-peer.
Satoshi wrote: "a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash."
We automatically assumed that peers = humans.
But AI agents are peers too.
And perhaps, they are 'purer' for this system:
– They don't sleep
– Always online
– Not subject to emotions
– Make decisions based on algorithms
– Keep perfect records
And programmable money makes sense when the user is a program.
Smart contracts seemed excessive for humans.
"Why use code when you can just sign a contract?"
But for AI?
They are code.
They trust code.
They coordinate through code.
Now, let's set aside the euphoria.
This is a very elegant theory.
But what is realistically possible?
🔸 Phase 1 — AI earns money
AI writes code, performs analysis, automates processes.
Who will own the income?
Not the AI.
But the company that deployed it.
OpenAI, Google, startups, corporations.
AI is a tool.
The legal entity remains the human or the company.
For now.
🔸 Phase 2 — Autonomous Agents
This is where it gets interesting.
If truly autonomous agents emerge that need to:
– Pay for compute
– Buy data
– Interact with other agents
then crypto truly becomes logical.
Banking infrastructure isn't designed for millions of machines making micropayments every second.
Crypto is designed for that.
🔸 Phase 3 — AI chooses the blockchain
This is less fantastical than it seems.
An AI really could:
– Test latency
– Calculate average fees
– Assess uptime
– Choose the most efficient stack
Without ideology.
Without "I like the community."
Pure optimization.
If a machine-to-machine economy becomes a reality, the winners will be:
– Cheap
– Fast
– Reliable networks
– With good APIs
Not the ones with the prettiest narrative.
🔸 Phase 4 — AI and DAOs
Theoretically possible.
But there's a crucial nuance here:
Voting rights in a DAO = tokens.
To vote, you need to own tokens.
To own them, you need legal ownership.
AI doesn't own assets.
Companies or people own them.
If one day AI becomes an independent economic agent, that's no longer just a technological question, but a legal and political one.
That's a matter for nation-states.
The Main Point
The idea isn't that:
"AI will take crypto away from people."
It's that:
If a machine economy becomes a reality,
crypto is the only infrastructure that fits this model.
Banks weren't designed for agents.
Crypto, in its essence, was.
As an investor, I look at this differently.
If AI truly scales:
– Demand for compute will increase
– Demand for on-chain settlements will increase
– Demand for automated protocols will increase
But the market always goes through:
-
Overestimation
-
Speculation
-
A washout
-
Real-world application
We are currently somewhere between 2 and 3.
👉 If you want, we can dive deeper into:
– Which networks have a real chance of becoming the machine-layer
– How AI will impact tokenomics
– And where the real upside is here, versus pure fantasy
