Venture Capitalists Skeptical of AI and Cryptocurrency Integration

Rob Haddick, General Partner at Dragonfly, and David Pakman, Managing Director at CoinFund, expressed skepticism at the Emergence conference regarding the potential for decentralized AI to disrupt the dominance of their centralized counterparts.

“Crypto assets have a problem with taking things that really work well outside the blockchain and making them worse by integrating them into the network and selling them to people already in the ecosystem,” noted Haddick.

The discussion participants highlighted that the greatest value AI could bring to the crypto industry is assisting developers in writing code, as software creation remains a key element in the realm of this new class of digital assets.

“AI is a massive software and technical revolution. We create a lot of software in Web3 and should benefit from using neural networks in a bunch of different decentralized applications in the areas of infrastructure, security, and user product behavior,” emphasized Pakman.

He agreed with the view that decentralized AI projects are unlikely to disrupt the operations of centralized competitors and praised developers striving to create alternative systems.

Skepticism Surrounding AI Agents

Several conference participants expressed enthusiasm about AI agents—programs designed to perform complex tasks on behalf of humans without regular guidance or intervention. Haddick highlighted this area as one he views with particular skepticism, comparing the current hype to the interest in GameFi projects in 2021.

“[…] Tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto venture capital will come into this space. Almost everyone will lose a lot of money,” the expert emphasized.

Pakman disagreed with Haddick’s view, discussing the potential synergy between AI and cryptocurrencies. In his opinion, neural networks could simplify interactions with money. They are capable of making payments on behalf of the user. Cryptocurrency is the perfect tool for transactions between agents and people.

Earlier, venture firm Andreessen Horowitz identified the integration of AI with blockchain as one of the key areas for the development of the crypto industry by 2025.