Crypto Is Pivoting to AI

It was inevitable. Once investors lose interest in crypto, founders of companies in the space will pivot. The latest change of heart is, surprise, surprise, AI.

Sup! 👋

Maybe you didn’t know, but by day I work as the Content Coordinator at a little start-up called Relai.

Therefore, I have extensive exposure to Bitcoin and the broader crypto community. From reaching out to partners to speaking with other companies to engaging with the press.

And there is something I have noticed the last couple of months: long-time HODLers (people who hold Bitcoin and crypto for a long time) are leaving the space and pivoting to AI.

Or they’re engaging more with AI because it’s currently where the hype is, or because they’re genuinely interested.

I’m also guilty of this. Mainly because I want to test and see what this new kind of tech is all about, but also because I see the productivity increase.

Either way, I’m intrigued to dig a bit deeper today and find out what’s going on.

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

The inspiration for this article was the following interview by Kris Marszalek, the CEO of Crypto.com:

Source: YouTube

In it, he explains his idea behind ai.com (speaking of snagging two of the hottest domains) and why he decided to launch this product.

On that note, he said he paid over $70 million for the domain and already had offers of over $500 million. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for that claim.

And if I say launch, this is quite a hefty take. The service currently is a landing page and a promise.

Sign up, pay them $20 a month, and in the future, you will be able to do some cool stuff with it. Apparently, it will be an identifier and focus on agentic workflows.

They launched in the most growth-hack way: by booking a Super Bowl ad slot, hyping it, and leading people to the website.

Ironically, the whole thing appears to have been done in a short time, so the website couldn’t handle the traffic.

Nevertheless, it worked as they have over 300,000 people who signed up.

Kris is still CEO of Crypto.com, one of the largest crypto exchanges, but his focus now seems to be on AI.

He argues this in this interview and in others: there is just more excitement in AI than in crypto.

Which is something I have noticed as well. It’s no secret that Bitcoin and other cryptos have entered a bear market. We see drawdowns of at least 50%.

During this time, things slow down, it gets a bit quieter, and believers are doubling down and building better products for the next wave of adoption.

But looking at the paper, the only real use case of crypto in the last two years has been the ETFs and prediction markets.

Besides that, all the promises we heard - with ungovernable money, building decentralized infrastructure, and expanding into a new ecosystem - have not become a reality.

To be fair, the guardrails on which this industry is built take longer than you anticipate, and I would argue the only real use case of cryptographic money is Bitcoin. The rest is all noise. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Rather, it seems Bitcoin and crypto have been captured by the big banks and financial institutions they claimed to fight.

Source: Google Trends

I’m also fully aware that not everyone thinks like this, but the majority of interest in crypto seems to be driven by institutions, not retail, as it was earlier.

Ironically, AI emerged alongside all the developments and got in the way.

But as you can see in the chart above, it also had it’s tiping point. Interest is slowly vanishing as well.

However, if you view both ecosystems as assets, why invest in the one that gives you a 50% return when there is another that increases productivity, is easier to use, and gives you a 500% return?

Speaking from personal experience, I’m more interested in AI now because I've seen a real-world increase in my productivity. What used to take me 10 hours is now taking me 2.5.

At the same time, I see AI adoption amongst everyday people accelerating. Normies can understand what to do with Gemini or ChatGPT better than they can understand why you need to remember 12 words in your head.

Not that I think it’s hard to remember the 12 words, but apparently, we’re not there yet and need to work harder on more user-friendly solutions.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still loving what I do in my day-to-day, but the days when I would further research a particular Bitcoin topic are gone.

Not because I don’t believe in Bitcoin, but rather because I want to enhance my knowledge in a new and emerging field and use that to further improve my “orange-pilling” skills, aka, educating people about Bitcoin.

And, most importantly, I have tried to educate people about Bitcoin so often that I’m kind of tired and think to myself, they will come in due time.

In the long run, after experiencing this for a couple of bear markets, I think the interest in Bitcoin, and eventually crypto, will return.

And if this is the case, I hope that all of us who have been in it long enough are over-optimized and have AI systems in place to help people out.

The entire sector has come a long way, but I believe the adoption hurdle is still massive, and for now, getting people hooked on AI seems like the easier play.

Having said that, I believe both worlds will merge soon enough, when we get to a point where AI needs to be monetized or when agents need to find a way to pay other agents online.

You can do this with a credit card, but the dangers and privacy nightmares are too much of a hassle. And if you ask any chatbot today, chances are they will tell you Bitcoin is the best currency to solve this problem.

I will wait and see how long it takes us to get to that point. Especially at the rate this technology is growing, this could be sooner, rather than later…

While the crypto hype has slowed down and people are pivoting, there has also been a lot going on elsewhere on the Internet.

The following pieces or links are Tabs Worth Opening.

• Spotify developers have not written a line of code since December: I think we will see more headlines and articles like this one. Vibecoding and agentic development have contributed massively to this. What I’m interested in is the quality of that code and whether there are many bugs in the Spotify app.

• Clone AI, a news aggregator with 2005 vibes: I recently stumbled across this website, and I must say, I love the look and feel, as well as the content on there. A great place if you’re interested in tech and culture.

• VC unicorns are losing their edge: For the past 10 years, we've heard about unicorn success stories and how rich many VCs have gotten from this explosive growth. Taking a closer look at the data now shows that this trend may be fading.

• Karen Hao’s book, Empire of AI: I recently picked up Karen’s book and really enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at how OpenAI and ChatGPT grew into the giant they are today. Spoiler ahead, there are a lot of “WTF?!” moments in there.

• Love TBPN, you may also like ETN: The TBPN podcast has become one of the most interesting media brands in the tech scene. It now sparked a new show called ETN. Both co-hosts are from the UK, and I like the European vibe of the show.

And that’s a wrap for the sixth full issue of Internet Native Capital.

It felt more like a personal issue, but it was great to spill my guts and write down why I believe the crypto industry is pivoting.

If you liked it, go ahead and leave me a comment below; if you didn’t, let me know as well.

My goal is to engage more with my readers here and see where I can take Internet Native Capital.

That’s it for now, I’m heading out to learn more about how local LLMs run best on my setup.

See ya!