As they say, that didn't take long.
Of course, there is the idea that it took 10 years to become an overnight sensation.
We are watching the future of crypto emerge before our eyes. This is something that I have not seen many discussing, especially with regards to stablecoins. There are a few who mention this but I expect it to get a great deal more coverage now that we had the breakthrough.
What is the future of crypto?
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The future of the Internet is AI agents. We are at the onset of this but it is something that will, in my view, explode.
I often draw the analogy to the personal computer and the Internet. That seems to make the most sense. AI, to me, is more of a new form of compute. It certainly is not networking.
The personal computer was a very limited device. When it was only interacting with humans, this was an issue. However, once we set the networking of these machines, everything changed. Naturally, this was called the Internet (although the World Wide Web was used for a while).
What was most important was the ability for computers to "talk" to each other. Here is where the major boost came from.
Consider what your laptop is like if not connected to the Internet. What can you do? How are you limited?
There is no reason to believe that AI agents will not follow a similar path. A single agent can be useful. However, when we have billions of agents connected together, things will change radically.
We will have to see how accurate this vision of the future really is. That said, if it is even close, this presents an entirely new framework for crypto to operate from.
Cryptocurrency is the of the Internet. This never existed in the physical world, making it ideal for the future we are entering.
It is also going to be the unit of exchange for AI Agents.
While this might seem like sci-fi, we have seen the first transaction done.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has announced a significant milestone, marked by the first crypto transaction between artificial intelligence (AI) agents on the exchange’s developer platform.
In a recent X (Twitter) post, Armstrong said the Coinbase developer Platform witnessed its first successful crypto transaction between two AI agents. The bots completed the transaction using AI tokens. Unlike regular crypto tokens, these are data strings enabling Large Language Models (LLM) to learn from information.
This is a big milestone which also shows us the future. Understanding how things are unfolding is crucial for everyone involved in cryptocurrency.
The CEO stated that the potential of AI technology has been limited because automated bots can’t transact to acquire the resources they need.
“They don't have a payment method to book you the plane ticket or hotel for your upcoming trip. They can't get through paywalls (for instance to read a scientific article), promote their post on X with a paid ad, or use the growing network of paid APIs to integrate data they need.” Armstrong wrote.
There is a valid reason for using cryptocurrency in these instances:
Noting that AI agents cannot get bank accounts, Armstrong said they can now get crypto wallets and use USDC on Base to transact with humans, merchants, or other automated bots. According to the CEO, these transactions are instant, global, and free, setting up the AI-to-AI economy to explode in the coming years.
As stated on numerous occasions, Web 3.0 is much bigger than crypto. While that gets all the attention, the focus is misguided. Very little of our future is going to be crypto.
Why is this?
How much of the technology realm is fiat currency. Obviously, money is important yet, do we talk about money when referencing the Internet, nanotechnology, VR, or charging stations? We do look at funding, valuations, and market capitalization yet those are part of the financial arena. When it comes to our lives, the tech, like a stick-free frying pan is not about the money raised to bring it to market. Instead, we simply use it.
Do you know how much money was used to start the Internet? What payments were received? How were the early companies valued?
For almost all of us, none of that matters. Instead, we simply use the technology.
The future is AI, not crypto. We are going to see the latter be a part of it since we require payments. That is crypto's role. However, it is the technology that is being developed that will alter society.
It is akin to looking at a cake and focusing upon the flower made out of icing as opposed to the cake itself. While we are viewing the cake, the focus is on a small part.
The networking of AI agents will ultimately lead to the development of personal AI agents. This means we are going to see trillions of transactions where humans are not involved. We have evidence of how this works when we look at the financial markets and how much volume is generated by computers.
In this case, what we have is the shift to what Eric Schmidt called test-to-action. We are going to have our agents, simply through commands, handling a variety of actions that now require us. Once humans are removed from the process, many of the things humans constructed in the past become obsolete.
Here is where the digital world continues it assault on the physical. It is also the point where, in many ways, banks become pointless.
Wall Street basically eliminated human traders due to computers. AI agents are going to do this to a host of professions, along with the associated apparatus that supports these people.
Cryptocurrency infrastructure is crucial. The advancement in this area are vital. That said, I think we need to look at crypto from a different perspective.
With technology, it is common for it to evolve in ways that differ from the original conception. We see this often throughout the last 100 years.
Probably the most famous was the Post-It-Note. The research there was meant to design an adhesive that was unbreakable. Instead, it was something that was ideal for adhering paper to each other while allowing for separation.
To go one step further, the utility of the Internet today is much different from the vision of the original creators.
I think crypto is going to be much the same way. This is being designed for AI agents, not humans. That is where Web 3.0 is going.
