For years, Cryptos placed himself as the next major technological revolution. But when we witness the explosive increase of AI, it’s time for crypto to meet the truth: the true technological revolution of our era is artificial intelligence and Crypto will play a leading role rather than being the star.

This is not about reducing the importance of the industry or the quality of what it is built. I helped Pioneer Institutional Investing in Bitcoin and I have operated and invested in several companies based on the chain. I also served a Ph.D. in AI. The simple truth is that the building of intelligent systems that solve problems in the real world must be the mission, regardless of whether blockchain rails are included.

In terms of pure crypto, the only segment left is defi. Objectively a better version of Tradfi, Defi boasts better technique, programmability and composition. This is caught correctly with Meme: Internet Capital Markets. StableCeCoins and Tokenization have shown unique product market care, and they remain Crypto’s truest (read: read only) demonstration of real concrete value to date. As such, the institutions come and for good reason. Blackrock, Robinhood and even Crypto-native Stalwarts like Coinbase builds crypto products in anticipation of impending regulatory clarity. Moving immediate global payments and settlement along with more complex financial instruments on the chain is a no-brainer.

Otherwise there is ai. There are traditions like the major laboratories, model builders and LLM providers. There is open AI like Deepseek and Mistral. There is Open Source AI as Nous. AI apps as marker and lovable. Agents like Manus. Robotics. And even decentralized AI or Crypto X AI (we get to it in a minute …). In short, there is already more demand for AI products and services than has ever been to pure crypto applications.

This is trapped by another meme: If you are in crypto, turn to AI.

This should not surprise us. While Crypto has struggled to find mainstream use cases beyond speculation and games, AI is already improving productivity and is working to transform industries all over the world.

What more is? A sober reality for crypto – further highlighted by the recent Memecoin activity and what has been called “crime szn” – has been the interruption between token values ​​and actual technological applicability. While decentralized technology self is Revolutionary has the value trapped by tokens has historically been driven more by memetic appeal than by true technological value creation (there has been calls to be grounded in “basic” from late, but we’ll see if it has legs …). This is not necessarily a criticism – meme value is real value in many ways – but it highlights a basic weakness of crypto as an independent industry.

This does not mean Crypto’s rect. In fact, blockchain and crypto protocols can become essential components of a future AI -Tech stack. But they will act as infrastructure that underlies AI-FIRST PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, rather than as independent products.

Consider ways to Make AI cheap again: Distributed computing power for training and inference, verifiable calculation and data price, tokenized access to calculation resources, decentralized training data storage and transparent reward mechanisms for contributions. Distributed computing and depin architectures as well as transparent verification systems have proven their tools. But -and this is crucial -they will do so in service for AI products and services that solve real problems for mainstream users who do not know or are interested in the underlying technical infrastructure.

We could imagine protocols built using blockchains that generate revenue through license or use and were paid in other tokenized forms of value such as stablecoins-one model in sharp contrast to the token-as-the-the-product model at the moment A LA -mode.

For founders and teams currently focused on crypto-native applications, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is expanded beyond the pleasant but limited crypto -ecosystem that is primarily represented by Crypto Twitter and [Insert Your Favorite Conference Here]. The opportunity is to participate in the true technological revolution that AI represents.

What does it mean in practice? First, teams should start to think bigger. Founders must ask themselves how AI can transform their target market, and then consider how cryptotechnology can help enable this transformation. This basically means changing how we approach the building and marketing of crypto products.

Instead of starting with tokenization, tokenomics or even blockchains in general, start with problems in the real world that AI could solve. Only then should team identify where decentralized systems could improve AI and implement these pieces of the stack where they really add value.

Live crypto where it makes sense, especially where it can reduce costs or improve efficiency, but focus on the square of delivering value through intelligence and automation.

For example, companies could use blockchains to create decentralized marketplaces for critical processes, making AI more accessible and cost-effective (Vast.ai, a Nazaré portfolio business, does this for GPUs, and Orchid has redefined the Internet and privacy with decentralized markets for years).

Agents can also use cryptographic verification or privacy systems to safely and safely shop on our behalf online using our login information, identities and credit cards or even private keys and wallets on chain.

In both cases, Crypto earns the bigger goal of making AI systems more efficient and reliable.

The companies that will thrive in this new landscape are the ones that understand this dynamic. They will either build AI-first products that incorporate crypto where it adds real value, or they will explicitly build crypto services designed to improve AI-based products or services. The market does not support teams that run around and exert the hammer, there are blockchains that treat everything like a stitch.

Ultimately, this is about correct understanding of the relationship between crypto and AI. The future belongs to AI as the primary frame, while carefully incorporating crypto where appropriate.

For large parts of the crypto industry, this is a moment of truth and an in -depth calibration. We can either cling to the story of Crypto as an independent revolution and speculative tokens as retail products, or we can embrace Crypto’s supporting role as excellent technology for ai service.

The latter may be less glamorous (and perhaps less valuable to investment portfolios), but it is ultimately more likely to create real lasting value and influence.

The sooner we accept this reality, the better we will be to contribute meaningfully to the technological transformation that is already underway. It’s time for the crypto industry to think bigger than itself.

If you are in crypto, turn to AI.