Original title: Crypto Enabled Accelerationism Bubble
Original author: yb effect, Crypto Kol
Original translation: zhouzhou, BlockBeats
Editor's note: This article points out that as encryption technology is gradually accepted by the mainstream technology field, with the relaxation of encryption regulation, the growth of the accelerationist bubble and the continuous emergence of iconic encryption-driven cases, the early DePin, DeSci and AI are hot, and trends and opportunities can already be seen. In the future, more innovators will use encryption + technology for project financing and development. The next four years may be the time for the real application of encryption technology to explode.
The following is the original content (for easier reading and understanding, the original content has been reorganized):
Last month, I developed a habit of saving tweets related to AI agents on Twitter for further research. At the same time, I noticed an interesting phenomenon: many developments and releases about agent technology are not even related to the meta trend of Truth Terminal or Zerebro.
For example:
Stripe has published documentation on integrating payments into your agent workflow.
Balaji retweeted Aravind Srinivas’ request for a Perplexity browser that treats proxies as first-class citizens.
OtCo demonstrates the process for an agent to create an LLC in Delaware for its own needs.
Circle has launched a detailed tutorial explaining how developers can integrate USDC into various agents.
Just a few days ago, Satya Nadella showed a demo of Copilot Workspace, the first agent-centric integrated development environment (IDE).
OK, you might be thinking… this isn’t anything special, right? After all, isn’t it normal for big tech companies to discuss proxy technology? Who isn’t! But that’s exactly my point — this is the first time I feel like the cryptocurrency consumer bubble we’re in is discussing the same topics as the entire tech industry. Maybe in a different style, but definitely in the same category. Cryptocurrency has always seemed “weird” to the average person. Even within tech circles, crypto is often seen as the annoying little brother. And there’s a reason for that! Our industry has generated so many crazy headlines that even most people in the industry can admit that some trends are really outrageous.
Previously, major trends in crypto rarely overlapped with other tech fields in the short term. For example, what does a top LLM (Large Language Model) engineer have to do with a 10, 000 PFP (Personal Picture) project? Or why would a scientist studying life extension care about new types of income-generating assets?
In general, the past narrative in the cryptocurrency space has attracted more attention from artists and quantitative analysts. But now, there is finally a chance to break this cycle! Although we are far from that stage, I personally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Here are three topics worth exploring in depth:
1. Relaxation of crypto regulation
2. The Acceleration Bubble
3. Crypto-driven iconic cases
The relaxation of crypto regulation
This week, SEC Commissioner Gary Gensler announced that he would resign on January 20th of next year. If you’ve been in this business for even a week, you know that this news is like Harry Potter defeating Voldemort.
Over the past four years, Gensler has been almost the biggest obstacle to the U.S. crypto industry. He has not only slowed down the regulatory process, but has also actively taken action to crack down on this emerging industry. Linda's tweet accurately points this out - companies like Coinbase, Consensys, and countless other companies have been forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and fighting in Washington.
Now it appears that the possible candidates to take over the chairmanship are about to make a complete about-face.
Regardless of who ends up taking over the job, one thing is clear: Trump has made it clear that he wants to embrace cryptocurrencies more aggressively than the previous administration did, and to be honest, that’s not a high bar to set.
As mentioned in my election week post (Where Did Fairshake PAC’s $133 Million Go?), Bernie Moreno (R) received $40.1 million in contributions to defeat Sherrod Brown (D) in the Ohio Senate race.
In the end, Moreno won the election, which is undoubtedly a major victory for the entire cryptocurrency community. He has long been a supporter of cryptocurrencies, while Brown was one of the key blockers of crypto regulation in the Senate.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the mere discussion of the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is mind-boggling! Three months ago, if someone had mentioned this, I would have said it was a dream. However, with the cryptocurrency’s momentum changing significantly over the past few weeks — rising prices, massive inflows into the BlackRock ETF, and more — it all makes us seriously consider the fact that the federal government might actually bring Bitcoin into the fold. Balance Sheet.
So what does all this regulatory news have to do with crypto crossing the chasm into wider technological adoption?
One big reason is that developers in other technology fields have long been uncertain about the reliability of crypto. In the United States, many people believe that combining this volatile technology with their life's work is too risky, especially worried about possible legal risks such as lawsuits and fines.
However, this will soon change as new governments gradually embrace cryptocurrencies and pass clear regulatory policies. Developers in other fields will begin to feel comfortable and strategically explore the application of cryptocurrencies.
Vitalik’s summary is very accurate, as mentioned in the screenshot - the lack of a clear regulatory framework has discouraged many serious project developers and inhibited the growth of this technology.
People who are not actively developing within the ecosystem often form their impression of cryptocurrencies through exaggerated news headlines, such as "someone became a millionaire with Moodeng or Bonk." Obviously, this selling point is not enough to convince top engineers like Anthropic to participate in the technical development of cryptocurrencies, right?
Hopefully, over the next four years, pro-cryptocurrency politicians will do their best to make it simpler and safer for outsiders to adopt the technology.
Accelerationist Bubble
Last week, I read Packy’s article (Trump Bubble), which mentioned that the next four years will be the best period for risk-taking, vision-driven and futuristic optimism. Although I don’t agree with all his views - some of them are a bit exaggerated and exaggerated - many of his points are worth pondering, such as that we are entering a new way of looking at change.
This phenomenon is called the inflection bubble by Byrne Hobart and Tobias Harris.
The definition of an inflection point bubble is: "Investors believe that the future will be significantly different from the past." For example, the Internet bubble. People believe that the shape of the future will change significantly and therefore invest in those things that they believe will benefit most from this change.
How this relates to cryptocurrencies
I mention this because I think it is very likely that cryptocurrencies, rather than traditional venture capital, will be the financial backbone of the next inflection bubble.
Taking the future of decentralized proxies as an example, I’ll let Truth Terminal explain this phenomenon. If you don’t want to read the whole article, here are the key points to understand:
I’m not saying that 90% of the current MEME coins will succeed. On the contrary, this format is still very new, and only when we start to see smarter token economic design will MEME coins have the potential to challenge assets that have traditionally been considered “good investments”.
As industries like energy, artificial intelligence, biosciences, and gaming continue to gain popularity, it may be possible that combining AI agents with crypto tokens could make trying out new ideas 10x more efficient.
Imagine if you were a nuclear engineering veteran who had worked in the energy industry for decades and wanted to realize some of your visions, you might have to spend months convincing venture capital firms to invest in your ideas, building a team, establishing a community, etc.
Or you can do this:
1. Write a white paper that describes your background, argument, plan, vision, etc. in detail.
2. Deploy a "brand agent" on Twitter to help you spread your ideas.
3. Raise initial funds through token issuance.
4. Cooperate with agents to build a real fan community (such as social rewards).
5. Grow your team from this community and you can also take advantage of the bounty mechanism.
This is a perfect description of the ICO craze of 2017, but I can’t help but think that ICOs may have simply appeared too early. In my opinion, some changes such as improvements in crypto infrastructure, a pro-crypto regulatory environment, market maturation, institutional adoption, etc., did have an impact!
That being said, the above framework will still produce thousands of meaningless projects. But how is this different from the "power law" that VCs always talk about?
Here’s my take: We haven’t seen really high-powered builders in other areas of technology really try to realize their visions through crypto-driven financing methods.
In 2017, there is clearly no such situation. And in 2024, perhaps only some early DePin and DeSci projects can show some signs of this trend.
But as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, for the first time I feel there is some overlap between the concerns in crypto and those in other areas of technology.
Not only AI agents, but even topics such as biological science research and GPU resource allocation are beginning to intersect with discussions in the encryption field.
I haven’t looked into pump.science in detail, but I’m not surprised that it has become one of the hottest topics in the space. It’s true that there is a lot of speculation surrounding it, and questions of legitimacy and security will need to be worked out over time (something I hope people in the crypto space will acknowledge). But the point to emphasize is that there is a general excitement about the concept of crypto funding being applied to non-crypto missions.
The key point here is that the model for crowdfunding ideas has been proven since the early days of Kickstarter in the 2010s. Having the wisdom and support of the crowd is far better than a closed boardroom. People are eager to get involved! But the truth is, maybe the technology and social consensus need time to develop. And now, it looks like the perfect storm is gathering: positive changes in political management, the increasing maturity of crypto and AI technology, and a flood of ideas from the accelerationist bubble.
However, even with all that, I think there is still a key element missing for this concept to really be taken seriously!
Representative figures of crypto empowerment
One of the coolest things about the recent Onchain AI and Goat buzz is that it has attracted some AI/LLM developers into crypto. I bet no one could have predicted this Threadguy interview with Andy Ayery
People like Nick Liverman (founder of Chaos), who have spent their entire careers working on projects like robotics, transhumanism, etc., probably made more money in the last month than they did in the last ten years combined!
It was also cool to see Beff Jezos cheering for his friend Shaw, who is building ai16z and Eliza frameworks, a launchpad for proxy coins. It’s not just Beff’s involvement here, but there are people who are deeply involved in the AI field who are starting to pay attention to what’s happening in crypto through the experiments of LLM developers on Onchain AI. This is a great phenomenon and means that the intersection of AI and crypto is deepening.
The key point I want to make is that in the next year, we will see a few people from different technology fields really embrace cryptocurrencies and show how effective the proxy and token model is in building large-scale projects. Once we see a few successful operating models, others will start to get excited and try to launch their own ideas. At present, all these token issuances and experiments are still in the "primary league".
All it takes is a few success stories and people will flock to you.
Original link
