At Cointelegraph’s LONGITUDE event in Dubai, blockchain leaders from Polygon and Near Protocol agreed that crypto is set to supercharge the adoption of artificial intelligence, thanks to its unique incentive structures and decentralized ethos.
$POL Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal explained that crypto can help AI startups onboard users and developers by leveraging token incentives. “You can use crypto incentives and disincentives to onboard ecosystem players,” he said, adding that such models could even lead to “better AI” development.
$NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin envisioned a future where AI agents replace traditional apps and websites as the primary user interface in Web3. “Your AI becomes the interface to computing and the internet,” he said.
However, both warned of growing AI token scams. Nailwal emphasized that while most AI-related tokens are “literally scams,” a few projects are pursuing genuine innovation.
With over 1 million AI agents expected to enter the decentralized economy by 2025, experts stressed the need for crypto-native, privacy-preserving AI to counteract the centralizing power of big tech.
“Crypto is the only force capable of making AI peer-to-peer,” Polosukhin concluded.
