As Nvidia's market value surpasses the entire crypto market, and the intensity of the AI narrative is strong enough to support a technological revolution on its own, the 'AI + Crypto' frenzy that has lasted for half a year in the Web3 world seems to be entering a period of calm reflection. The market's pendulum has swung from the fervor of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to the reality of value discovery, and as the tide recedes, we can finally distinguish clearly between those building solid fortifications and those merely 'bare swimming' on the beach.
This narrative ignited by AI has propelled the prices of countless tokens skyward, but as the dopamine fades, a core question arises: Does the combination of AI and crypto create a new value paradigm, or is it merely a collusion of capital and attention?
Current Status Review: A Multi-Dimensional Battlefield Differentiated Between Value and Speculation
In the first half of 2025, the AI + Crypto track is undoubtedly the brightest star in the crypto market. However, as June approaches, market performance has shown significant differentiation, presenting a dual-track pattern of 'value-driven' and 'speculation-driven.' Value-driven projects are no longer competing on a single dimension but are deeply laying out across multiple levels such as infrastructure, platform ecology, and vertical applications.
1. Infrastructure Layer: The Arms Race of Decentralized Computing Power and Data
This is the most solid and easily understandable value capture layer in the AI + Crypto field.
Decentralized Computing Network: The explosion of AI has made GPU computing power the 'new oil' of the digital world.
Projects led by Render Network (RNDR) coordinate global idle GPU resources through blockchain, providing a cost-effective alternative for AI model training and rendering. Network usage data continues to grow, proving real business demand.
Competitors in the track also include HyperCycle, which aims to build a Layer-0 AI computing network that supports complex AI tasks across nodes and has launched hardware node devices like HyperAiBox; and NodeGoAI (GO), which also creates a decentralized computing resource market allowing users to rent out idle CPU/GPU resources for AI and scientific computing. These projects together form the core applications of the Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) in the age of AI.
Decentralized Data and Model Platform: Data is the fuel for AI.
Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) has been deeply involved in this field for many years, building a decentralized data marketplace that allows data to be shared, traded, and used for AI training while protecting privacy.
And Cortex (CTXC) has taken a more aggressive approach, aiming to allow AI models to run directly on the blockchain, thereby granting smart contracts true 'intelligence.' Although the widespread adoption of on-chain AI still faces challenges, this exploration provides imaginative space for the future forms of DApps.
2. Platform and Ecosystem Layer: From Solo Efforts to Alliance Games
As the track matures, projects begin to shift from independent development to ecological integration in pursuit of greater network effects.
Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI Alliance): This is one of the most significant events in this field in 2025. Fetch.ai (FET), SingularityNET (AGIX), and Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) have announced the merger of their tokens to jointly build a powerful decentralized AI ecosystem.
The goal of this alliance is to integrate the strengths of three parties: Fetch.ai's Autonomous Economic Agents (AEAs) framework for building AI agents capable of autonomously executing tasks; SingularityNET's AI service marketplace; and Ocean Protocol's leading data-sharing infrastructure. This merger aims to accelerate the research and development of decentralized Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), directly challenging the closed AI ecosystems dominated by tech giants.
Proof of Personhood and Identity Networks: As AI becomes increasingly powerful, distinguishing between humans and machines becomes a fundamental issue.
Worldcoin (WLD) enters the scene in a highly controversial yet visionary manner, attempting to build a global Proof of Personhood network through the iris-scanning device Orb. Despite ongoing scrutiny regarding privacy and regulation, its global user base and ecological applications continue to expand, aiming to provide the underlying identity and financial infrastructure for a future world coexisting with both humans and machines.
3. Application Layer: Seeking the Holy Grail in Vertical Fields
The ultimate value of AI + Crypto needs to be realized through specific applications.
AI Empowers Finance: The decentralized AI hedge fund Numerai (NMR) is a pioneer in this field. It incentivizes global data scientists to anonymously submit predictive models for financial markets through cryptoeconomics, integrating them into a 'meta-model' for investment. This model explores the innovative combination of AI and collective intelligence in quantitative investing.
AI Empowers Vertical Industries: Innovation is happening in every corner.
Quantum Blockchain (QBT) claims to optimize Bitcoin mining algorithms using AI to improve energy efficiency. Startup Rumi Labs targets the media sector, developing on-chain interactive technology that employs AI to analyze streaming content, attempting to transform passive viewing behavior into an interactive, rewardable 'Watch-to-Earn' model.
Questions and Challenges: Three Unavoidable Mountains
Beneath the dazzling narrative of AI + Crypto are three unavoidable real-world challenges that collectively constitute the bottleneck for the development of this track.
The 'pseudo-proposition' dilemma of technological integration: Many projects merely forcefully stitch AI and blockchain together. The real technological challenge lies in how to run complex AI models on a decentralized, transparent, and immutable blockchain. Currently, both the performance bottleneck of on-chain computing and the cost and latency issues of oracle-transferred AI results remain far from effectively resolved.
The 'Death Spiral' of Economic Models (Tokenomics): The vast majority of AI projects attempt to build an economic closed loop of 'contributing resources - earning tokens - staking dividends.' However, the model's fragility lies in the fact that once token prices drop, the attractiveness of resource contributions diminishes, leading to a decrease in supply, weakening the project's fundamentals, and exacerbating sell pressure, forming a 'death spiral.'
The 'Sword of Damocles' of data privacy and ownership: The lifeblood of AI is data, while one of the core spirits of Web3 is user data ownership. How to protect user privacy and provide fair returns while leveraging user data to train models? The global regulatory scrutiny triggered by Worldcoin's iris data collection serves as the most direct warning.
Looking for the Future: Where will capital look when the AI narrative cools down?
As the market grows weary of the pure AI + Crypto narrative, capital and savvy developers have begun to turn their attention to more grounded areas. Among these, DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) and RWA (Real World Asset Tokenization) are becoming the most notable 'next value narratives.'
DePIN: From the Digital World to the Physical World
The logic of DePIN is aligned with projects like Render and HyperCycle, but its vision is broader. It aims to leverage token incentives to enable global users to collaboratively build and maintain the infrastructure network of the physical world, with its value rooted in real needs of the physical world rather than mere digital hype.
RWA: A bridge connecting traditional finance with the crypto world
If DePIN is Web3's 'transformation' of the physical world, then RWA is the 'integration' into the traditional financial world. By tokenizing real-world assets such as real estate and bonds, RWA introduces a steady stream of high-quality assets with stable yields into the crypto world, potentially becoming a core channel for guiding massive traditional funds into Web3.
In Conclusion
The story of AI + Crypto is far from over, but it is transitioning from a fervent phase of 'everything can be AI' to a deep-water zone of discerning truth and value accumulation. True innovators are overcoming technical hurdles while speculators are searching for the next trend.
This article represents the author's personal views and does not reflect the stance or views of this platform. This article is for information sharing only and does not constitute any investment advice to anyone.
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