In fact, both Crypto and AI are doing something to "empower" humans, but the ways and depths of empowerment are completely different. Think about it carefully:
1) Crypto empowerment emphasizes so-called "decentralized financial sovereignty," allowing individuals to control their assets and exchange value without relying on traditional centralized institutions such as banks. This empowerment method is "defensive," meaning that while it's not strictly necessary, it's better to have it. This implies that by adhering to the principle of decentralized empowerment, the crypto industry will never be disproven.
2) AI empowerment leads to an "exponential amplification of productivity," enabling people to do things that were previously impossible. This explains the continuous expansionary capital investment from internet giants, driving the continuous growth of AI concept stocks. This empowerment approach is "offensive," meaning that the growth of the AI industry has already followed a scaling law-like growth curve trajectory.
This law tells us that the growth of AI capabilities is predictable, sustainable, and exponential. We can see that the computing power arms race, the algorithm revolution, and the large-scale popularization of agent applications are all foreseeable future events.
But Crypto is different. The growth logic of Crypto has shifted from regulatory arbitrage by capital to orderly penetration under regulatory approval. Therefore, in terms of "wild" growth alone, Crypto's growth rate is indeed, as everyone perceives, slower than that of AI.
It's not that Crypto has no value, but rather that its value realization speed can't keep up with the speed at which AI is changing the world.
Therefore, Crypto must make a choice: either actively embrace AI and become the value layer infrastructure of the AI Economy, or gradually narrow its expectations and "casinoize" itself, becoming a niche speculative financial market and completely detached from "value".
Therefore, the x402 protocol, AI Agent payments, and on-chain AI economy are all narrative directions in which Crypto actively embraces AI. Although this process will be slow, when AI generates massive payment demands and automated transaction demands, it will be able to keep up with the scaled growth of the AI industry and thus enjoy the dividends of AI industry growth.
The time window is also very clear. If 2027 is taken as the time node for the emergence of AGI, Crypto must complete a wave of positioning and layout of the protocol layer before that.
Stop obsessing over "Crypto for Human" and getting hopelessly entrenched in these pirate philosophies. Clinging desperately to the idea that AI industry growth is the only lifeline. If you can get a piece of the pie when the AI economy fully explodes, you'll already be considered a success.
