Crypto Investment Magnate Barry Silbert is investing heavily in decentralized AI and calls it “the next big era with crypto” that could be bigger than even Bitcoin.
In a letter to the shareholders of the Hans Crypto Conglomerate Digital Currency Group, Silbert went on DEAI: Crypto Industry’s efforts to melt AI -Innovations with Blockchain Tech. He believes that the technical mashup can pay better benefits for humanity than the closed systems developed by Openai and other giants.
“We are moving from the digital ownership of assets to the decentralized ownership of intelligence and the availability of huge decentralized calculation resources,” Sibert wrote in the 4th quarterly letter reviewed by Coindesk.
The setup reminded Silbert of Bitcoin, the best known and far-grained cryptocurrency, and the one where he first made his crypto wealth. But instead of a money revolution, Deai was able to launch a power revolution with crypto as the mechanism of distributing ownership and governance over powerful AI models.
DCG definitely seems to. The company has already invested $ 105 million in over a dozen Deai projects, “and we are happy to ramp this up in 2025,” Silbert wrote.
He highlighted DCG’s investment in bittensor – a crypto network that specializes in machine learning and AI applications – such as the portfolio company closest to “escape speed.” Bittensor’s Tao Token has many similarities to Bitcoin, he wrote.
In particular, Tao’s market capital is $ 2.7 billion, a rounding error against Bitcoin’s nearly $ 2 trillion valuation.
DCG plans to invest mighty in supporting the bittensor ecosystem. Silbert pointed out that in November a company called Yuma, which incubates bittensor infrastructure projects. And Grayscale, another DCG company, now offers investment products that give exposure to TAO.
Silbert’s Q4 letter Distributed a year of “reconstruction” at DCG after a long period of riot that was spawned by the FTX implosion that fell its lending business, Genesis. DCG is also a previous owner of Coindesk, after selling to Bullish at the end of 2023. All five of DCG’s wings had a “successful 2024,” he said.
“The required discipline over the past few years has resulted in improved infrastructure and more mature processes, improved governance and a stronger organization that focused on performing on our growth initiatives,” Silbert wrote.
