Written by: Patrick Collins

Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News

In 2025, venture capital firms such as Sequoia, A16z, Lightspeed, and Y Combinator are heavily investing in AI companies, with funds flowing from the cryptocurrency sector to AI, not to mention the overall price of cryptocurrencies has recently dropped significantly.

Investment trend of Sequoia Capital over the past three years

Investment trend of a16z over the past three years

Investment trend of Lightspeed over the past three years

Investment trend of Y Combinator over the past three years

I have seen many people who entered Web3 with me in 2019/2020 start to leave and join AI companies or prediction markets. As someone fully dedicated to the field of blockchain and decentralized finance, in light of the current situation, I believe there are several different mindsets people can have.

Goodbye, they never had faith

This is a bit like a bad breakup; once a person leaves, they lash out. "Now only the true builders remain, everything will be better." I believe this mindset and approach is wrong. We need talent to enter this industry, even if they do not completely agree with our foundational ideals.

As long as we still have a vision, we will always need people to turn that vision into reality. Many people just want to live a good life; they do not necessarily want to change the world, and I think that's perfectly fine.

Both types of people in the world are great: those filled with extreme passion; and those whose passion is not as strong but are willing to work hard, improve themselves, and do the right thing. In my view, this is somewhat like the difference between a "rock star" and a "superstar."

Cryptocurrency is dead, quickly turn to AI

This is the topic I want to focus on, and it's a statement I want to engrave in your mind: the world’s finance will ultimately be completely driven by cryptocurrencies, it's inevitable.

Take a moment to reflect on this statement. Once you accept this, turning to AI seems completely unreasonable.

Indeed, AI is exploding, AI is wonderful, but AI is just a tool used to build other things. Among those "other things" is the future of finance.

Of course, you can make the choice that is most beneficial to you. The AI field might have a fast-moving train beckoning you, and you can hop on. But I believe you will miss out on an even greater opportunity because of it.

Why is blockchain inevitable?

The reason is the same as why gold can hold a market value of 35 trillion dollars today. I've discussed "what is currency" countless times, especially in the context of stablecoins. Currency has three main functions: store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account.

Throughout human history, finding a trustworthy, neutral, and convenient currency has been nearly impossible, until recently. Gold is recognized as a "trustworthy and neutral" currency, but it is very impractical and cumbersome. Cryptocurrency is the solution.

The crushing advantage of blockchain

This aspect alone is already attractive, but when combined with smart contracts, the explosive potential will be astronomical. Take the stock market, for example: the NYSE has a daily trading volume of about $80 billion, while Uniswap may only have $20 billion, a staggering 40 times difference. But then consider the operating costs: the parent company of the NYSE has about 12,000 employees; meanwhile, Uniswap theoretically only needs liquidity providers to operate, with only about 200 employees.

The operating costs are reduced by 60 times! Just from a cost perspective, the advantage of running a decentralized exchange is crushing.

Not to mention its censorship resistance and trustworthy neutrality, which are the core significance of this technology. I won't delve into why trustworthy and neutral financial products are the future; just looking at the data is enough: the operating costs of DeFi are extremely low, while also being fairer.

Many people are skeptical of the logic of "trustworthy neutrality"; I will skip this part in this article. Most of these people come from developed countries and will never understand how important this technology is for underdeveloped countries. But I still believe this is the most core reason why cryptographic technology will inevitably succeed.

Many people start to ask, "Why should I pay such high transaction fees and wait two days to settle stocks?" as soon as they see the enormous costs of the existing financial system.

Conclusion

If you want to leave, that’s perfectly fine, but I believe you will miss the large-scale adoption that is happening, and the opportunities here are greater than ever before.

Historically, many so-called "opportunities" in the cryptocurrency field have, to some extent, been scams. NFTs, liquidity mining, meme coins; these products exploit people's ignorance of new technology to harvest traffic. We have gone past that stage; we all know those things are foolish.

Now, we can truly allow institutions and ordinary users to use products that can improve their lives: Aave, Uniswap, zero-knowledge privacy protocols, stablecoins… they provide financial services to people around the world at extremely low costs and lower barriers to entry.

The future world will run on top of this infrastructure. And I will continue to do my utmost to make that day come sooner.

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