Author: YB
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Soon, all organizations will need to establish on-chain entities. Compared to traditional Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), on-chain businesses are not only more efficient but can also be launched faster.
In the past month, I've developed a new habit: whenever I see tweets related to AI agents on X (formerly Twitter), I save them for later in-depth study. Over the past two weeks, I noticed an interesting phenomenon: many messages about agents seem to have surpassed the metaverse frameworks like Truth Terminal or Zerebro.
For example:
Stripe released a technical document on how to integrate payment functions into agent workflows.
Balaji forwarded a tweet from Aravind Srinivas, who proposed developing a Perplexity browser that views agents as core functionality.
OtCo demonstrated how an agent can register an LLC for itself in Delaware.
Circle released a detailed tutorial guiding developers on how to integrate the USDC stablecoin into various agents.
A few days ago, Satya Nadella demonstrated Copilot Workspace, the first integrated development environment (IDE) for agents.
At first glance, these seem to be the usual discussions about agents by large tech companies, which is not surprising. After all, agents have become a hot area for companies to invest in.
But this is precisely my point—it's the first time I feel that the crypto industry and mainstream tech industry are beginning to discuss the same theme. Although the starting points are different, they are essentially exploring the possibilities of agents.
For a long time, the crypto industry has seemed somewhat 'heretical' to ordinary people, and even within the tech community, the crypto industry is often viewed as the 'annoying younger brother'. This is not without reason—there have been so many outrageous news stories produced by our industry that even insiders have to admit that some trends are indeed baffling.
Through these changes, I see a new trend: the crypto industry is gradually merging into mainstream tech discussions, and agents may become a bridge between the two.
The past meta-narratives of the crypto industry often lacked intersection with other tech fields in the short term. For example, a top LLM engineer seems to have no connection with a 10k PFP (profile picture NFT project). And why would a scientist studying longevity be interested in a new type of yield asset?
Overall, the narrative of the crypto industry has so far mainly attracted two types of people: artists and quantitative analysts.
However, there are finally signs that this limitation may be broken!
Although we have a long way to go to achieve this goal, I personally have seen some faint signs of hope.
Currently, there are three key topics worth exploring in depth:
Relaxation of crypto regulation
Accelerationism bubble
Crypto-driven paradigm figures
Next, we will discuss each point in detail.
Relaxation of crypto regulation
This week, SEC Chair Gary Gensler announced he would resign on January 20 next year. If you know a bit about the crypto industry, you know that this news is as significant as Harry defeating Voldemort in (Harry Potter).
Over the past four years, Gensler has been a major obstacle for the U.S. crypto industry. He not only slowed down the regulatory process but also took active suppression measures that put enormous pressure on this emerging industry. As Linda's tweet mentioned—many companies, including Coinbase and Consensys, had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying and fighting in Washington to survive.
And now, the potential successor to him seems to have completely changed direction.
Regardless of who ultimately takes over, it is certain that the Trump administration clearly hopes to support the crypto industry more than the previous administration. Frankly speaking, this goal is not difficult to achieve.
WSJ
In my election week article (Where Did Fairshake PAC's $133 Million Go?), I mentioned that Bernie Moreno (Republican) received $40.1 million in donations in the Ohio Senate election, successfully defeating Sherrod Brown (Democrat).
Moreno's victory is a milestone event for the entire crypto industry. He has long been an advocate for crypto technology, while Brown has been one of the main figures obstructing crypto regulatory reform in the Senate.
This series of changes may indicate that the crypto industry is about to welcome a more friendly policy environment.
Lastly, it's worth mentioning that the discussion around the potential topic of 'U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve' itself is shocking! Three months ago, if someone mentioned this concept, I might have thought it was absurd. However, with the recent rapid development of the crypto industry, such as the continued rise in Bitcoin prices and the surge in inflows into the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF, we have to seriously consider: the federal government might actually incorporate Bitcoin into its balance sheet.
So, how can these regulatory advancements help the crypto industry bridge the gap and enter more extensive tech application fields?
In the past, many developers from other tech fields were skeptical about the reliability of crypto technology. They were concerned that the volatility of this technology could pose potential legal risks to their core projects, such as lawsuits and fines, thus shying away from integrating crypto technology.
However, as the new administration gradually embraces crypto technology and formulates clearer regulatory rules, developers in other fields will gradually feel more confident to strategically explore the application of crypto technology.
Vitalik accurately summarized this in a screenshot: the lack of regulatory clarity for serious projects severely hinders developers' acceptance of crypto technology. Those who have not deeply participated in the crypto ecosystem may form an impression of crypto through some exaggerated news headlines (like the millionaire stories of Moodeng and Bonk). This clearly cannot effectively attract top engineers like Anthropic to join the crypto industry, right?
I hope that in the next four years, politicians supporting crypto can do their utmost to simplify and secure the adoption of crypto technology, thereby attracting more talent from outside the industry.
Accelerationism bubble
Last week, I read Packy's article (The Tump Bubble). In it, he proposed that the next four years will be a time encouraging risk-taking, nurturing visionary ideas, and filled with futuristic optimism.
Although I do not completely agree with his viewpoint—some parts of the article seem overly optimistic or even exaggerated—Packy raised an important argument: our way of thinking about 'progress' is undergoing an 'atmospheric shift'. Future developments will be faster, crazier, and more experimental.
This phenomenon has been termed the 'inflection bubble' by Byrne Hobart and Tobias Harris.
The so-called inflection bubble refers to the state where 'investors believe the future will be significantly different from the past'. Think of the internet bubble. If you believe that fundamental changes will occur in the future, you would invest in those assets that are most likely to benefit from this change.
To better interpret the idea of 'actively shaping the future', I quote the explanation from Truth Terminal.
If you don't want to read the entire article, here are the key points you need to remember:
I'm not saying that 90% of memecoins will succeed—rather, this form is still very novel. Only when the design of tokenomics becomes more sophisticated can we see memecoins truly rival traditional 'quality investments'.
Truth Terminal
With the rapid development of fields like energy, AI, life sciences, and gaming, the model that combines AI agents and crypto tokens could enhance the efficiency of trying new ideas tenfold.
Imagine if you were a senior nuclear engineer who has worked in the energy industry for decades, wanting to realize a bold vision. The traditional path might require you to spend months persuading venture capital to support your idea, building a team, establishing a community, etc., making the whole process long and full of uncertainty.
But you can also choose the following ways:
Write a white paper clearly outlining your background, theory, plan, and vision;
Deploy a 'brand agent' on Twitter to help spread your ideas;
Raise initial funds through token release;
Leverage the power of agents to build a community of core supporters (e.g., through social rewards);
Recruit team members from the community or attract more talent through bounty tasks.
I know you might say, 'YB, aren't you describing the ICO craze of 2017?'
That's right, you are correct.
But I believe that ICOs may have simply appeared at the wrong time.
Now, with the improvement of crypto infrastructure, a more friendly regulatory environment, the gradual maturation of the market, and widespread institutional participation, these changes lay a foundation for the success of similar models.
Of course, this framework may still give rise to a large number of worthless projects. But how is this different from the 'power law' often mentioned in the venture capital world? After all, the vast majority of projects fail, while a few successful ones create huge returns, a phenomenon that is common in any field.
If the market environment of 2017 was not enough to support this model, then by 2024, we might see some early DePin (Decentralized IoT) and DeSci (Decentralized Science) projects beginning to emerge.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, this is the first time I feel that the focus of the crypto industry intersects with the interests of other tech fields.
Not just agents, but topics such as life sciences research, GPU allocation, and others are also beginning to receive attention.
Bitget
I haven't delved deeply into pump.science, but it's not surprising that it has become a hot topic in the current field. Of course, there are still some issues that need to be addressed behind this model, such as rampant speculation, legitimacy, and safety (I believe those involved in the crypto industry are well aware of this).
However, it is worth noting that people have shown great enthusiasm for the concept of 'using crypto financing to support non-crypto field tasks'. This trend may indicate that crypto technology is gradually moving towards broader practical applications.
The core point here is that since the early successes of Kickstarter in the 2010s, the model of crowdfunding ideas has proven to be effective. Compared to making decisions in a closed boardroom, leveraging the wisdom and support of the masses is undoubtedly more advantageous, as people crave to be involved!
However, the success of this model may require continuous development and accumulation of technological and social consensus. And now, it seems that various conditions are forming a 'perfect storm': positive changes in the political environment, the gradual maturity of crypto and AI technologies, and the creative explosion brought about by the accelerationism bubble.
However, even so, I still believe that a key catalyst is needed for this concept to be taken seriously!
Crypto-driven paradigms
Recently, a highlight of Onchain AI and Goat meta is that it successfully 'absorbed' some AI and large language model (LLM) developers into the crypto field.
To be honest, who could have predicted that Threadguy and Andy Ayery's interview would become a hot topic?
If you think about it carefully, this is indeed an astonishing phenomenon.
Additionally, it's quite interesting to see Beff Jezos cheering for his friend Shaw. Shaw is developing the ai16z and Eliza framework, which is a launch platform designed for agentic coins. The focus here is not on Beff himself, but on a developer deeply involved in AI, who has connected with the crypto field through experiments by LLM developers in Onchain AI.
I want to emphasize that in the coming year, we will see some individuals from different tech fields officially embrace crypto technology and demonstrate the efficiency of the agent + token model in building significant projects.
Once a few successful cases emerge, others will inevitably be inspired to start trying to realize their own ideas.
The token releases and experiments we see currently are just a 'small test'.
Just a few successful examples can trigger a herd effect.
You could say... it starts with a slow accumulation, followed by a sudden explosion!
That's all for today's sharing.
I believe everyone has experienced a lot of busyness and challenges this past week, and I hope you can take some time this weekend to step outside and relax!