VCs have piled billions into robots.

For decades, besides fancy demos there has been little to show for it.

This is going to change soon.

Why?

1. Actuators, sensors, and vision etc are much cheaper and reliable now.

2. AI is much more advanced; robots can now see, plan, and act without tele-operation.

3. Simulation has improved drastically in the past 2 years. Robots can rain in rich, physics‑accurate sims.

4. Geopolitics is driving it: Labor shortages + tech rivalry = urgency. US and China will lead the race.

5. Money is here (again): Billion‑dollar bets will continue

⚠️So the important question…

How to bet on this besides buying into (expensive) robotics companies?

A few peripherals that seem under-explored + tackle massive problems in robotics are:

1. Data bottlenecks: Not enough data + demos = poor generalization. (DePin could solve this)

2. Walled gardens: Closed platforms block innovation (Bittensor-style development could be interesting)

3. Latency limits: Edge compute is still catching up (again, potential crypto element)

4. Public trust: Safety + job fears = deployment drag.

5. Hardware gaps: Durability and battery life still weak

Over the past year, @tangent_xyz has been exploring ways that crypto or distributed systems can accelerate this future, particularly in the first three.

We’ve put about $2M of capital to work so far and expect to do much more.

If you are working to tackle any of the above challenges (with or without crypto), I’d love to chat!