The block chain was used. Province
Author: ChainCatcher
Earlier this month, Variant, the old encryption industry, announced the completion of a new fund raise of $222 million and further expanded the theme of the fund from “digital ownership” to “autonomy”。
It seems to be just an ordinary fundraiser, but the signals behind it are not ordinary。
The Variant partner Jesse Walden suggested that the future label “encrypted investor” might disappear and become a similar “Internet investor”. In other words, encryption is no longer an independent closed investment track, but rather a bottom-up technology paradigm embedded in the main shipping lanes of AI, finance, socialization, robotics, data, content and consumer products。
THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST REALISTIC ANSWER TO ENCRYPTED VC IN THE FACE OF AI SHOCKS: NOT TO COMPETE WITH AI, BUT TO TRY TO BECOME THE BOTTOM FINANCIAL TRACK OF THE AI WORLD。
I. ENCRYPTION VC STARTS BLURLING BORDERS
In the past few years, the fund-raising logic of encrypted VCs has been based mainly on the premise that the block chains will produce a new platform, new protocols and new applications independent of the Web2 world。
This logic was particularly convincing when the narratives of DeFi, NFT, GameFi, Layer 1, Layer2, Modularization, Recommitment, DePin, RWA and others appeared. As long as the Fund enters the new narrative sufficiently early, it may be able to obtain a return on secondary market liquidity in tokens that goes well beyond traditional equity investments。
But today, this logic is failing, at the heart of which is the apparent decline in the wealth effects of the encrypted market itself. Bitcoin has fallen sharply this year, and several market views see the withdrawal of capital from the crypto ETF, macro liquidity pressures, and the shift of investors to AI and large technology IPO as important reasons. Meanwhile, SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic and others, along with hard-tech companies, continue to attract LP and secondary market attention, significantly reducing the scarcity of encrypted assets in “growth stories.”。
THIS MEANS THAT ENCRYPTION FUNDS ARE COMPETING NOT ONLY WITH OTHER ENCRYPTION FUNDS, BUT WITH ALL ASSETS THAT REPRESENT FUTURE GROWTH. AI, ROBOTS, SPACE, DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY, ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE ARE COMPETING FOR THE SAME LP RISK BUDGET。
Against this background, “encrypted only” has evolved from a professional label to a potential constraint。
IF LP BELIEVES THAT AI IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGICAL VARIABLE FOR THE NEXT DECADE, THEN IT IS DIFFICULT FOR A FUND TO PROVE ITSELF IRREPLACEABLE BY SIMPLY SAYING, "WE KNOW MORE ABOUT TOKEN ECONOMICS." IN PARTICULAR, OVER THE PAST FEW CYCLES, A LARGE NUMBER OF ENCRYPTION PROJECTS HAVE NOT PROVED REAL INCOME, USER RETENTION AND APPLICATION, BUT HAVE LEFT STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS SUCH AS HIGH FDVS, LOW CIRCULATION, AIRBORNE MINING AND CHAIN ZOMBIE APPLICATIONS。
AND THAT'S WHY MORE AND MORE ENCRYPTED VCS START ACTIVELY BLURLING BORDERS。
YZi Labs has expanded into three main directions: Web3, AI, and Biotech, and this year has invested $52 million in financing for AI Industrial Robotics, RoboForce。
According to the Wall Street Journal this February, Paradigm is seeking to raise up to $1.5 billion for the next fund, which will expand from encryption to "front-line technology" such as AI, robots and so on. In May this year, the AI manufacturing company SendCutSend completed $110 million in financing and Paradigm participated。
In May, Haun Ventures announced the completion of a new $1 billion fund raising and the expansion of investment to the AI proxy area. And its founder, Katie Haun, said that artificial intelligence would be "increasingly representing us in economic activity" and that services would need to be adapted to the future。
II. AI PROXY OR ENCRYPTED REAL MASS LANDING APPLICATIONS
In the past, encryption projects have often attempted to allow users to use products for the purpose of “decentreization”, but reality has shown that the vast majority of users do not change behaviour based on ideas。
Today, the encryption industry is in an awkward position: it still has unique capabilities such as globalization, open finance, portfolioability, asset distribution and censorship, but these capabilities have long lacked a truly high frequency, demand and scale application portal。
More likely in the future, users do not know that they are using encryption, but AI Agent, robotics, financial applications, games or content platforms call for identity on the backstage to stabilize coins, wallets, smart contracts and chains。
In Varant, autonomy seems more than automation. Automation solves the question of whether machines can carry out their tasks on their own, while autonomy concerns whether users truly control their own assets, identities, data and decision-making power. According to Varant, building an autonomous system requires addressing a range of issues such as incentives, law, governance, security, certification, policy and geopolitical interfaces in a confrontational market, while digital ownership is an important pillar of autonomy。
“The idea of promoting the Web3 movement will find new dynamics in the age of artificial intelligence. We've done a lot of experiments, and the encrypted currency was initially intended to be the product itself. But eventually we found that the encrypted currency is the orbit that supports many products, and its growth story is just beginning." Jesse Walden said。
This is probably the most important cognitive correction in the encryption industry in recent years。
ENCRYPTION DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A FRONT-OFFICE APPLICATION OPEN DAILY BY USERS. IT CAN BE AN ECONOMIC SETTLEMENT BETWEEN AI-ERA MACHINES AND MACHINES, PEOPLE AND MACHINES, APPLICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS。
AI Agent needs a wallet if it wants to perform its tasks on behalf of the user; if it wants to buy API, access to calculus, pay data, subscription services, it needs low-cost, globalized, programmable payment networks; if it wants to carry identity, reputation and assets between multiple platforms, it needs an open account system; and if it wants to convince the outside world of the results of its actions, it needs certification and auditing mechanisms。
These are precisely the range of capabilities that encryption has accumulated over the past decade or so。
III. The investment case of Tether
The investment of the encryption giant Tether in the NEURA Robotics is a typical example of this trend。
On 10 June, the German robotics company Neura Robotics completed $1.4 billion in financing, with investments from Tether, Amazon, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Bosch, Schaeffler and the European Investment Bank. NEURA states that this money will be used to scale up the commercialization of cognitive and human robots and to plan to produce millions of robots by 2030. It also disclosed that its backlog of orders had exceeded $1 billion。
On the surface, it's an AI robot investment; but for Tether, it's obviously not just a financial bet。
Based on relevant draft information, the NEURA robotic platform is expected to integrate Tether ' s wallet development toolkit WDK, which will directly embed the hosting wallet function into the robotic system. This means that robots may in the future receive micropayments through the completion of their mission, trade with other systems or carry out economic behaviour within human predefined parameters。
This is one of the most imaginative scenarios for the stabilization currency。
In the past, the largest users of stable currencies were traders, cross-border payers, grey arbitragers and some emerging market residents. It addresses issues of human transfers, settlements and value storage. But if AI Agent and the robots begin to become economic agents, the frequency of use and the scene of the stabilizer can be significantly amplified。
A robot can order, complete handling, obtain USDT micropayments; an AI Agent can automatically purchase data, call models, pay SaaS services; and an automated supply chain system can automatically settle after the arrival of goods, sensor validation, contract confirmation. Compared to the traditional banking system, the payment chain is naturally suited to this high frequency, small amount, geographic, machine-readable economic activity。
AND THAT'S WHY AI'S ON ENCRYPTION IS NOT JUST A COMPETITIVE RELATIONSHIP. AI TOOK AWAY THE CAPITAL ATTENTION FOR ENCRYPTION, BUT IT COULD ALSO CREATE REAL DEMAND FOR ENCRYPTION THAT HAS BEEN MISSING IN THE PAST。
IV. AI + Crypto is not a universal formula
Of course, AI+Crypto is not natural。
Over the past two years, the market has seen a lot of rough-knit projects: connecting ChatGPT into the Telegram group, called AI Agent, packaging a model for an interface into a currency economy, and stuffing data labels, algorithms, intelligent platforms in a white paper. The problems of many projects are not fundamentally different from those of the previous round of GameFi, SocialFi: large concepts, small incomes, heavy tokens and light products。
A truly valuable AI + Crypto project should meet at least one condition: it cannot be created without encryption, or it is clearly better with encryption。
For example, Agent needs self-custody wallets and privileges management; AI needs verifiable sources and ownership to generate content; models, algorithms and data markets need open clearing and incentive mechanisms; the robotic economy needs machine-readable payment networks; and autonomous organizations need transparent governance and enforceable rules. In these scenarios, encryption is not a marketing label posted outside, but a basic part of the system ' s operation。
THIS IS ALSO A QUESTION FOR ENCRYPTION PROJECTS AND VCS TO ANSWER NEXT。
If they change the Fund's introduction page to AI + Crypto simply because AI is easier to raise funds, then this will not change the industry's predicament. Sooner or later, the market will find that most of the so-called integration projects have neither an AI barrier nor a need for encryption。
But if they can find the real intersections between AI Agent, robotics, data markets, financial automation and chain identity, the encryption industry may indeed have a new application cycle。
This time, the increase does not necessarily come from the fact that more bulkers rush into exchanges to buy new currency, but from the fact that more machines, applications and businesses are on track to use the chain backstage。
Concluding remarks
IN THE FACE OF THE IMPACT OF AI, THE ANSWER GIVEN BY THE ENCRYPTION VC IS CLEAR: NO LONGER USE ENCRYPTION AS AN ISOLATED TRACK, BUT REINTERPRETATION IT IN A LARGER TECHNOLOGICAL WAVE。
This is both positive evolution and forced to turn around。
When LP funds go to AI, when entrepreneurs' attention goes to AI, when risks in secondary markets go to AI, encryption funds can only narrow the living space if they continue to talk about the growth of Layer1, DeFi, NFT, chains and airdrops。
But that doesn't mean the encrypted story is over. On the contrary, if AI Agent is really a new Internet user, robots are really a new economic player, and automated systems are really beginning to carry out more and more transactions on behalf of humans, encrypted wallets, stable coins, smart contracts, chain identities and open financial networks that have been built over the years may be the first time that high-frequency, fresh-demand, non-speculative use scenes have taken place。
The encryption industry needs new narratives more than ever, but it needs new real needs more。
