A reader recently asked a sharp question: how should we think about combining AI with blockchain? Beyond financial speculation, what is a blockchain with a token actually good for? If its only real use is finance, how does that sector ever grow large? And how is an ordinary person supposed to take part?

I have long believed that AI and blockchain are fated to strike sparks off each other, and that at some point in the future the two technologies will show a strong, mutual relationship of dependence, connection, and complementarity.

The reason, which I have shared in earlier writing, is this: the essential attributes of the two technologies are completely opposite, completely heterogeneous. One aspires toward centralization; the other aspires toward decentralization. One relies on centralized trust to achieve efficiency; the other sacrifices efficiency to achieve decentralization. That same tension is now playing out inside Bitcoin itself, where the debate over whether to freeze Satoshi’s exposed coins pits neutrality against security — a conflict we examine in our piece on Bitcoin’s quantum dilemma.

It is much like the dynamic described in classical thought — two forces that both generate and restrain one another; elements that can both complete and conflict with each other.

Faced with the relentless efficiency of AI, many people understand it at a glance, and at a glance they submit, almost willingly, to the sense of efficiency and the pressure it projects.

I understand that feeling well, because it is human nature — we easily feel inferior before, and blindly trust, centralized power and force.

And it is precisely in such a moment that a decentralized platform like blockchain becomes especially precious, that it can hold the final line and set the final guardrail.

The point is not abstract. The same artificial intelligence whose mathematical leaps some researchers warn could one day weaken elliptic-curve cryptography — or, as others argue, accelerate the quantum threat to Bitcoin’s signatures — is the very force pulling control toward centralization. Blockchain’s answer is not to fight AI, but to remain the one layer no single center can rewrite.

So logically, the two must eventually combine.

That is my intuition and feeling, drawn purely from logic and conviction.

But exactly what form their combination will take, what tracks and business models it will produce — that I am still observing, still exploring.

In recent years many AI + crypto applications have appeared, and I have shared quite a few of them in past articles. But so far, although many have achieved a degree of real deployment and have genuinely generated cash flow, I will be frank: their scale is still too small, their impact still limited. At least for now, it is impossible to tell which of them will grow into a towering tree, which will become the real inflection point.

Yet I remain very optimistic about this track, because I am looking at the future. So I will keep my patience and keep waiting.

On “financial speculation”

The reader’s message mentioned “financial speculation.” I am not sure exactly what that phrase referred to.

But there is one small sub-track I have paid attention to: feeding AI agents every kind of technical indicator and operating method, so that the agents run fully automated quantitative trading. [2]

This sub-track drew extremely high expectations not long ago, and attracted a fair amount of venture capital.

But since then, I have not seen much follow-up. I have not seen any AI agent — or any new fund built primarily around AI-agent operation — that has clearly outperformed traditional quantitative funds in trading results.

What gave me pause was the sizable drawdown recently suffered by one of China’s largest quantitative funds, an episode that suggests that, at least for now, using AI for quantitative trading is not quite as magical as people imagined. [1]

On consortium chains

As for consortium chains, I have always held that they are not real blockchains.

Everything a consortium chain can solve can be solved with the traditional distributed technologies that existed before blockchain appeared. [3]

I believe blockchain’s role extends beyond finance, to a much broader set of applications built on strong trust — which is also why a fixed, predictable supply is a feature of sound decentralized money rather than a flaw.

How ordinary people should approach the crypto ecosystem

On the question of how ordinary people can participate in the crypto ecosystem, I used to recommend it quite actively — because the capital barrier to participating in crypto investing is almost infinitely low, something no other investment ecosystem offers.

But I no longer see it that way.

The reason: although the capital barrier to entering crypto investing is extremely low, the cognition barrier is extraordinarily high — far higher than in any other investment ecosystem.

From what I observe, the vast majority of retail investors in this ecosystem still lose money, no different from any other field of investing.

In the crypto ecosystem, if your cognition does not rise to the occasion, a low capital barrier does not become an advantage — it becomes a disadvantage, making it easier for retail to lose money. So be clear-eyed and honest in assessing your own cognition, and only then participate cautiously, with an allocation mindset.

And as we have argued before, when your understanding cannot keep pace with your holdings, security becomes the ultimate luxury worth taking seriously.

References