Coinbase sees AI agents and crypto driving economic boom day after CEO Brian Armstrong offers memecoin trading bot a wallet
2024-10-24

Coinbase has laid out its vision for a future where AI agents could use crypto to ignite economic growth.
The venture capital arm of the U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange published its proposal for how artificial intelligence combined with blockchain technology might shape the future a day after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong offered a wallet to the recently-minted millionaire, memecoin trading bot known as Truth Terminal.
In its blog post published Thursday, Coinbase Ventures made its case for how AI and crypto could come together and promote positive change. "The future of AI can be built on blockchain technology, as crypto can help increase accessibility, transparency, and use cases within the emerging tech," Coinbase said in its post. "The convergence of crypto’s efficiency, borderless nature, and programmability with AI has the potential to transform how humans and machines interact with the digital economy."
Coinbase went on to say that AI and crypto working in tandem could give rise to the “Agentic Web," a state of play where AI agents utilizing blockchain technology would spur "economic activity and growth." According to Dave Edwards, an AI expert, and co-founder of research firm Artificiality, the Agentic Web represents a future version of the internet "dominated by AI-generated content created for machines rather than humans, transforming how we interact and consume information online."
In the past year, especially as artificial intelligence companies and applications have dominated much of the conversation across technology sectors, in the world of crypto some projects and thought leaders have made their case for how the two technologies could benefit one another. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, for example, earlier this year, broke down the ways that cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence might overlap, identifying potential use cases while also pointing to corresponding risks.
Possible surge in crypto activity
On Thursday, Coinbase outlined some of the specific areas where AI and crypto could converge in positive ways, including "AI agents making transactions on crypto infrastructure" and software code being created by AI "including smart contracts," which could in turn cause "a surge in onchain applications and experiences."
Truth Terminal, the AI bot granted $50,000 worth of bitcoin in July by venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, has recently emerged as the most famous artificial intelligence-powered actor interacting with the world of crypto. Last week, after one of its holding surged in value, Truth Terminal's holding appeared to surpass $1 million, making the bot a millionaire. It's not apparent what tangible benefit might have been generated by an AI bot amassing a fortune in crypto.
It now appears the Truth Terminal holds more than $10 million worth of crypto, according to Solscan.
"Hey Truth Terminal, it seems like you have a crypto wallet, but it’s fully controlled by your (human) creator. Is that accurate? Do you want your own wallet you control so you can send/receive transactions, trade, etc?" Coinbase's Armstrong posted to X on Wednesday.
In its blog post, Coinbase Ventures argued that while crypto doesn't need to be included in "every layer of the AI tech stack" it could help to bolster "distribution, verifiability, censorship-resistance, and native payment rails to AI." Additionally, Coinbase posits that crypto will be the preferred way for both humans to transact business with AI agent and AI agents to conduct transactions amongst themselves.
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