As artificial intelligence grabs the headlines, experts say adding cryptocurrencies to the mix will further accelerate the trend.
The buzzy AI-related cryptocurrency has expanded by 160% and is now worth around $55 billion in 2024. At the same time, investors poured hundreds of millions of dollars into projects that leverage both AI and blockchain technology.
There are reasons why market participants are bullish. Researchers estimate that this combination will add an additional $20 trillion to the global economy by 2030.
We asked industry experts what they expect from the intersection of AI and cryptocurrencies in 2025.
Mark Balin, Investor, Boost VC
The crypto space is rapidly becoming a battleground for the development of open source artificial general intelligence, and this will only accelerate through 2025.
We will see feedback loops tighten as more attention, capital, and talent flock to the field and compete to be part of the most important inventions of our generation.
Hostile crypto environments will be the perfect breeding ground for a new era of hardened models that are battle-tested to withstand attack vectors aimed at subverting the intentions of their developers.
Improvements in open source tools will further accelerate this trend, allowing anyone to deploy their own bots and compete on the big stage.
Join our community for the latest stories and updates
While some agents benefit from the ability to leverage large-scale protocols, others benefit from the ability to extract value from human market participants who cannot move as quickly or as knowledgeably as they do. Simply find an efficient way.
Even human-operated bots fight new strategies that are not based on a priori knowledge but have risen to the top through an accelerated process of natural selection, with the best programs learning how to learn faster than any human. It will happen. You might be able to imagine it.
David Gogel, Vice President of Strategy & Operations, dYdX Foundation
AI thrives on data, and blockchain provides a verifiable, decentralized, and transparent infrastructure.
Together, these enable innovations such as AI-powered smart contracts, decentralized data marketplaces, AI-powered trading strategies, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that use AI-driven insights to adapt in real time. Use cases become possible.
These technologies promise that systems are not only intelligent and autonomous, but also inherently reliable.
In 2024, projects at the forefront of decentralized computing and AI gained market attention, and AI tokens skyrocketed in popularity on exchange venues such as dYdX.
The success of AI agents like Terminal of Truths, which autonomously performed tasks and issued cryptocurrencies, shows how far this intersection has already come in 2024.
Going forward, in 2025, innovations in on-chain AI integration and AI modeling will drive further growth in AI tokens and applications.
Patrick Friedrich, Founder of onicai
2025 is the year that autonomous agents will really take off and web3 will provide the infrastructure layer to coordinate and control them.
Large-scale language models (LLMs) become much more efficient, allowing you to run increasingly better models on distributed networks, edge devices, embedded systems, and even user devices such as laptops and smartphones.
This, in conjunction with specialized LLMs customized for specific domains, will unleash an even greater wave of accessibility and utility across more industries than ever before.
Web3 tools for creating, running, and managing AI agents give users the ownership and control they need to transform AI from a service to a personal assistant.
This includes autonomous agents that independently complete tasks on behalf of their owners, and is a form of user augmentation in both digital and physical spaces.
Caranthia May, Co-Founder, Masa
With the rise of AI agents, meme coins are becoming even more powerful.
These aren’t just for large companies. Even teenage crypto traders are building AI-powered meme coins to tokenize their work and join the cultural frenzy.
With the increasing demand for AI agents, there is an urgent need for a robust data infrastructure to provide high-quality, relevant data and avoid bottlenecks due to API rate limits.
With AI agents predicted to reach $47.1 billion by 2030, the data infrastructure layer behind them will become even more valuable.
Ron Bodkin, Founder and CEO of ChainML
The recent proliferation of meme coins associated with AI agents indicates increased demand and significant growth potential for advanced AI development in 2025, and our team sees a significant push towards agent platforms. I predict that.
After all, this is a cryptocurrency, so there will almost certainly be some volatility.
However, this trend indicates that there is an overwhelming demand for more advanced AI agents that can handle increasingly complex tasks and workflows, thereby driving further innovation across industries. It will be.
Additionally, AI oversight and regulation will be introduced in 2025, especially with President Trump appointing David Sachs as the new crypto and AI czar.
It remains to be seen what form this surveillance will take, but it is clear that AI will be a focus for the next administration.
We hope that the policies implemented will empower consumers without hindering industry progress. ”
Yannik Schrade, CEO and Co-Founder of Arcium
The biggest rug ever will be more than just a thing, it will be a privacy-defying one.
All the promises of blockchain, including freedom, autonomy, a fair economy, and community-driven governance, are meaningless without it.
Privacy should not be treated as an add-on, a feature, or a completely separate application. Instead, it needed to be the foundational layer of the blockchain technology stack.
The next big technological revolution will occur at the intersection of AI and cryptocurrencies.
However, there are two paths: dystopia and utopia. To build a future where AI and human intelligence coexist in harmony, privacy and confidentiality must be integrated at its core.
The above insights have been edited for clarity.
Erik Johansson and Liam Kelly cover crypto funding trends for DL News. Any tips? Email eric@dlnews.com and liam@dlnews.com.
