Regulatory-friendly, accelerated investments, and big players entering: AI Agents become the key to Web3's breakout
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Regulatory-friendly, accelerated investments, and big players entering: AI Agents become the key to Web3's breakout
The crypto industry is gradually integrating into mainstream tech discussions, and agents might serve as the bridge between the two.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: YB
Compiled by: TechFlow
Soon, every organization will need to establish an on-chain presence. On-chain businesses are not only more efficient than traditional LLCs but can also launch faster.
Over the past month, I've developed a new habit: whenever I come across tweets about AI agents on X (formerly Twitter), I bookmark them for deeper exploration later. In the last two weeks, I’ve noticed an interesting trend—many developments around agents now seem to go beyond metaverse frameworks like Truth Terminal or Zerebro.
For example:
-
Stripe published technical documentation on integrating payments into agent workflows.
-
Balaji shared Aravind Srinivas’s idea of building a Perplexity browser with AI agents as its core functionality.
-
OtCo demonstrated how an agent could register an LLC in Delaware.
-
Circle released a detailed guide showing developers how to integrate USDC stablecoin into various agents.
-
A few days ago, Satya Nadella demoed Copilot Workspace, the first integrated development environment (IDE) designed specifically for agents.
At first glance, these may seem like routine discussions from big tech companies about agents—nothing surprising, given that agents have become a hot focus across the industry.
But that's precisely my point—I’m feeling for the first time that the crypto industry and mainstream tech are finally converging on the same conversation. Though their starting points differ, both are fundamentally exploring the potential of agents.
Crypto has long felt somewhat "fringe" to the general public, and even within the tech world, it’s often seen as the “annoying little brother.” This perception isn’t entirely unfounded—we’ve produced so many absurd headlines that even insiders admit some trends make no sense.
Yet through these shifts, I see a new trend emerging: crypto is gradually becoming part of mainstream tech discourse, and agents might be the bridge connecting the two worlds.
The dominant narratives in crypto have historically had little overlap with other tech fields in the short term. For instance, what would a top-tier large language model (LLM) engineer have in common with a 10k PFP NFT project? And why should a longevity researcher care about novel yield-bearing assets?
Overall, crypto narratives so far have mainly attracted two groups: artists and quants.
Now, however, there are signs this limitation might finally be breaking.
We still have a long way to go, but personally, I’m starting to see glimmers of change.
Currently, three key themes deserve deeper attention:
-
Loosening of Crypto Regulation
-
The Accelerationist Bubble
-
Paradigm-Shifting Figures Driven by Crypto
Let’s explore each one.
Loosening of Crypto Regulation
This week, SEC Chair Gary Gensler announced he will step down by January 20, 2025. If you're familiar with crypto, this news is roughly equivalent to Harry Potter defeating Voldemort.
Over the past four years, Gensler has been a major roadblock for the U.S. crypto industry. He didn’t just slow down regulation—he actively cracked down, creating immense pressure on this nascent sector. As Linda noted in her tweet, companies like Coinbase and Consensys have spent hundreds of millions lobbying and fighting in Washington just to survive.
Now, the potential successors appear to signal a complete shift in direction.
Whoever takes over, one thing is clear: the Trump administration clearly wants to be more pro-crypto than the previous one. Frankly, that wouldn’t be hard to achieve.
In my election week article, "Where Did Fairshake PAC’s $133 Million Go?", I mentioned Bernie Moreno (Republican) won Ohio’s Senate race after receiving $40.1 million in donations, defeating Sherrod Brown (Democrat).
Moreno’s victory was a milestone for the entire crypto industry. He has long been an advocate for crypto technology, while Brown was one of the Senate’s most vocal opponents of crypto regulatory reform.
These changes may signal a much friendlier policy environment ahead for crypto.
Finally, the mere discussion around a potential “U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” is astonishing. Three months ago, I’d have dismissed such an idea as fantasy. But with recent momentum—rising Bitcoin prices, surging inflows into BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF—it’s becoming plausible that the federal government might actually add Bitcoin to its balance sheet.
How do these regulatory shifts help crypto cross the chasm into broader tech applications?
In the past, developers in other tech fields were skeptical about the reliability of crypto. They feared volatility could expose their core projects to legal risks like lawsuits or fines, making them hesitant to integrate crypto at all.
But as the new administration embraces crypto and establishes clearer regulations, developers across domains will gain confidence to strategically explore crypto integration.
Vitalik perfectly captured this in a screenshot: lack of regulatory clarity for serious projects has severely hindered developer adoption. Meanwhile, outsiders often form impressions of crypto based on sensational headlines—like Moodeng or Bonk millionaires—which hardly attracts top engineers from firms like Anthropic, right?
I hope pro-crypto politicians in the coming years do everything possible to make crypto adoption simpler and safer, thereby attracting more talent from outside the ecosystem.
The Accelerationist Bubble
Last week, I read Packy’s piece “The Tump Bubble,” where he argues the next four years will be a period encouraging risk-taking, visionary ideas, and futuristic optimism.
I don’t fully agree—some parts feel overly optimistic or exaggerated—but Packy makes a crucial point: our mindset about “progress” is undergoing a “cultural shift.” The future will move faster, wilder, and more experimentally.
Byrne Hobart and Tobias Harris call this an “inflection bubble”—a state where investors believe the future will be fundamentally different from the past. Think of the dot-com bubble. If you believe a seismic shift is coming, you invest in assets most likely to benefit from it.
To better explain this idea of “actively shaping the future,” let me quote Truth Terminal.
If you don’t want to read the full article, here’s the core takeaway:
I’m not saying 90% of memecoins today will succeed—they’re still too primitive. But this format is novel. Only when tokenomics become more sophisticated will memecoins truly rival traditional notions of “quality investments.”
With rapid advancements in energy, AI, biotech, and gaming, combining AI agents and crypto tokens could make experimenting with new ideas ten times more efficient.
Imagine you’re a veteran nuclear engineer with decades of experience, wanting to realize a bold vision. The traditional path would require months pitching VCs, assembling a team, building community support—long, uncertain, and slow.
Alternatively, you could:
-
Write a whitepaper outlining your background, theory, plan, and vision;
-
Deploy a “brand agent” on Twitter to spread your idea;
-
Raise initial funding via a token launch;
-
Use agents to build a core supporter community (e.g., through social tipping);
-
Recruit team members from the community or attract talent via bounties.
You might say: “YB, isn’t this just 2017’s ICO craze?”
You’re right.
But perhaps ICOs were simply ahead of their time.
Today, with mature crypto infrastructure, friendlier regulations, a more seasoned market, and widespread institutional involvement, the foundation is finally in place for such models to succeed.
Of course, this framework may still spawn countless worthless projects. But isn’t that similar to the venture capital “power law”? Most startups fail, while a few outliers generate massive returns—a pattern universal across industries.
If 2017’s environment wasn’t ready, perhaps by 2024 we’ll see early DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure) and DeSci (Decentralized Science) projects begin to emerge.
As I mentioned at the start, this is the first time I feel crypto’s focus is intersecting with broader tech interests.
It’s not just agents anymore—topics like biotech research and GPU allocation are gaining traction too.
I haven’t dug deep into pump.science, but its rise as a trending topic isn’t surprising. Of course, challenges remain—wild speculation, legality, security—all well-known issues to those in crypto.
What’s notable, though, is the growing enthusiasm for using crypto fundraising to support non-crypto missions. This suggests crypto is moving toward broader real-world applications.
The core idea is simple: since Kickstarter’s early success in the 2010s, crowdfunding has proven effective. Relying on collective intelligence and support beats closed-door boardroom decisions—people want to participate!
But this model’s success likely depends on ongoing technological and social evolution. Now, conditions may be aligning into a “perfect storm”: favorable politics, maturing crypto and AI tech, and a burst of creativity fueled by the accelerationist bubble.
Still, even with all this, I believe one critical catalyst is missing to make this concept truly taken seriously.
Paradigm-Shifting Figures Driven by Crypto
A highlight of recent Onchain AI and Goat meta activity is how it successfully drew AI and LLM developers into crypto.
To be honest, who would’ve predicted that an interview between Threadguy and Andy Ayery would go viral?
If you think about it, it’s truly remarkable.
It’s also interesting to see Beff Jezos cheering on his friend Shaw, who’s developing ai16z and the Eliza framework—a launchpad tailored for agentic coins. The point isn’t Beff himself, but that an AI-focused developer is now connecting with crypto through LLM experiments on Onchain AI.
My point is: in the coming year, we’ll see individuals from diverse tech fields formally embrace crypto and demonstrate how the agent + token model enables highly efficient project-building.
Once a few success stories emerge, others will be inspired to pursue their own ideas.
Current token launches and experiments are still just “dipping toes in.”
Just a few strong examples could trigger a cascade effect.
In other words… slow accumulation, then sudden explosion!
That’s all for today.
I know this past week has been busy and challenging for many of you. I hope you can take a moment this weekend to step outside and unwind!
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
