PayFi connects the real world, AI Agent enhances the on-chain world.

Written by: Lao Bai

It feels like the new main themes of this round are becoming clearer, namely:

• PayFi
• AI Agent
• Meme

Interestingly, the previous round also had three main themes: DeFi, NFT, X2Earn.

Let me briefly explain why these three.

The biggest theme this round should be what Trump said during his victory speech yesterday, "Common Sense," or the Anti-narrative. The market is starting to feel disgusted with projects that only focus on narratives and are fixated on technology/infrastructure for VC and exchanges. Projects must return to common sense - what you create must actually be usable and have buyers (at least with NFTs, people can still buy monkeys and Punks as profile pictures, right?).

In the past two years, a bunch of decentralized computing/model training/inference projects have emerged. Just think about it: if you are a serious AI startup, would you really give up using Hugging Face, or buying cloud computing power from AWS or Azure, and instead use Web3's "decentralized" computing/model/inference platform? Ask yourself, does that make sense?

Now, let’s discuss why I believe the following three lines currently make sense.

1. PayFi - Connecting the Real World

In the past two months, the most discussed and observed sector in the primary market has been PayFi. It feels like many new and old PayFi projects that have been lurking or developing quietly have jumped out. Stripe's $11.1 billion acquisition of Bridge can be seen as a landmark event.

You may not have noticed or known that:

• PayPal's PYUSD has already exceeded $500 million (it recently surged to $1 billion).
• Osmosis and scrvUSD are working on debit cards, and other crypto cards based on Ton or other chains are on the way.
• Some are collaborating with Visa/Mastercard for supply chain finance or accelerated settlement.
• Some are directly negotiating with banks to bypass Visa/Mastercard for settlement.
• There are systems based on Solana Pay that provide merchants with Crypto Native Payment + DeFi Yield POS systems, without affecting traditional VISA/Mastercard transactions.
• Some are directly using on-chain + ZKTLS for P2P OTC deposits and withdrawals.
• There are even projects that move the main logic of banks onto the chain, directly using NFT for login + KYC, providing on-chain banking + traditional bank binding, allowing for transfers + deposits and withdrawals, as well as using Crypto Cards, and even directly Swift to traditional bank accounts.

A more "efficient, fast, good, and economical" payment system that allows you to spend your crypto assets directly, with safer deposits and withdrawals… these are real user demands. If done well, there will indeed be users/institutions, including Web2 players, willing to use it. In the end, we might find that the key to achieving Web3 mass adoption is not social media or gaming, but the PayFi sector.

2. AI Agent - Enhancing the On-Chain World

In the past year, I have discussed hundreds of AI projects, but I haven't really engaged with them because the integration felt somewhat forced, even with those leading and so-called top projects. Last year, when Vitalik was interviewed about the combination of AI and Crypto, he was actually asked this question, and his answers mostly revolved around AI helping Crypto rather than the other way around. However, for the crypto world to dream, it "must" be Crypto helping AI. Thus, we have the industry-standard so-called "model assetization," "data assetization," and "computing power assetization" as three sectors.

But to be honest, I have talked to many Web2 AI researchers and founders, and they view our three sectors as if they were watching a stand-up comedy.

What impressed me the most was a conversation I had last year with a decentralized computing project. The founder very "honestly" told us that when there was a significant or commercial demand for computing power, they would directly send it to their centralized data center to run, rather than handing it over to retail GPU power users, but they could "package" it to give the impression that retail power users were also involved. I had a good impression of this founder, even though I ultimately didn't invest.

It wasn't until the emergence of Goat this year that I was truly impressed.

This is not AI helping Crypto, nor is it Crypto helping AI.

This is a new thing that emerges from the true collision of AI and Crypto.

• AI Agents issue assets.
• AI Agents ShitPost and call orders.
• AI Agents form DAOs.
• AI Agents manage a fund's operations and trades.
• AI Agents have their own culture.
• AI Agents have their own religion.

This is something that Web2 AI cannot achieve, and pure Web3 Crypto cannot accomplish independently.

So far, at the current capability level of AI, I personally believe this is the best way to reflect the combination of AI and Crypto.

Regarding this sector, I recommend two articles:

https://x.com/0xNought/status/1851283278164345297

https://x.com/starzqeth/status/1853597036421259728

Also, the wizard @0xcryptowizard has shared a lot about this sector, so you can check out his tweets.

3. Meme - On-Chain Casino, No More Pretending

Pump.Fun has brought to light many things that people were unwilling to admit or could not openly discuss due to "political correctness."

Our circle is just a big gambling den.

But that's okay; we can finally face the fact that a significant function of Crypto is for PVP, and that’s OK.

The problem is, it cannot only be PvP.

As DujunX said, "If meme and tap2earn are the future of the industry, then this industry should die, fuck!"

So Meme and PVP will become an eternal sector in our circle. When more exciting, more mainstream, and more meaningful sectors and technologies emerge, the proportion of the Meme sector will shrink a bit and become more low-key. When the industry lacks direction and becomes tedious and disappointing, the Meme sector will step forward to be more active and take up a larger share.

Meme may be the "little bell" sector for future bull and bear cycles - It has been, and will always be there…

This is just my personal opinion, for reference and entertainment, NFA :)

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