This circle has a natural belief in "decentralization".

So when DeAI emerged, many people's first reaction was not to study it, but to be moved.

Decentralized AI.

Open intelligent network.

Everyone contributes computing power.

Everyone uses the model.

Not controlled by giants.

Not subjected to platform censorship.

Doesn't it sound familiar?

Familiar is right.

Because in every bull market, there is a phrase that sounds “grand, correct, and hard to disprove,” responsible for lighting up everyone's wallets again.

So the question comes:

Is DeAI a real demand or just a concept for harvesting by speculators?

My judgment is:

In the short term, there will definitely be a lot of harvesting concepts in DeAI.

In the long term, DeAI is indeed a very important path in the AI era.

These two judgments do not conflict.

Because the more important a direction is, the easier it is to be packaged by fraudsters.

Just like “new energy” is real, but it doesn't prevent a bunch of projects from using white papers to create electric cars;

“Web3” is real, but it doesn't stop a bunch of projects from ultimately having only their official website and Telegram;

“AI” is real, but it doesn't prevent many AI coins from basically being just ChatGPT API wrappers with a token.

DeAI is the same.

Many projects shouting DeAI, when translated into plain language, actually mean:

“I have a few GPUs, I want to issue a coin.”

Or:

“I have a model API, I want to issue a coin.”

Or:

“I have nothing yet, but I know the market likes AI and decentralization.”

This is certainly a harvesting concept.

But if we say that DeAI has no value because of this, then we have gone to the other extreme.

Because the truly important point of DeAI is not "blockchain makes AI smarter," nor is it "issuing a coin can overthrow OpenAI."

The truly important aspect of DeAI is:

AI is becoming infrastructure.

And if infrastructure is controlled by a few companies, it is not just a simple business issue, but a control issue.

The current AI world is increasingly resembling a super central kitchen.

The menu is written by a few model companies.

The kitchen is run by a few cloud vendors.

The ingredients are GPUs and data.

They set the prices.

They set the business hours.

What dishes you can order, they can also define.

You say:

“Master, I want it a bit spicier.”

He says no, platform policy does not allow it.

You say:

“Can I bring some ingredients myself?”

He says no, that violates service terms.

You say:

“Then at least tell me how this dish is made?”

He says sorry, it’s a trade secret.

This is the reality of AI today.

Ordinary users may not feel it strongly now, because everyone just uses AI to write copy, draw pictures, and check information.

But if in the future AI truly becomes workflows, trading systems, research tools, programming assistants, financial agents, and personal assistants, then the problem will be completely different.

At that time, whoever controls AI will control a large part of productivity entry.

So the core of DeAI is not to make AI better at chatting.

But rather to ask a more fundamental question:

Can we have a set of AI infrastructure that does not completely rely on the giants?

This is the real demand for DeAI.

Many people think of DeAI and first think of cheap GPUs.

This understanding is not wrong, but too shallow.

Cheap GPUs are just the first layer.

Just like when you open a restaurant, it is certainly important to have cheap kitchen rent, but what’s really important is:

Who owns the kitchen?

Who controls the ingredients?

Who reviews the menu?

Who takes the customer data?

Who settles the accounts?

Who is responsible when problems arise?

AI is the same.

What DeAI needs to solve is actually a whole set of issues.

First, access rights.

Today, a centralized API can raise prices, limit traffic, suspend accounts, or take down models, and it can also make something that you could use yesterday suddenly disappear today due to policy, regional, or company strategy changes.

For individual users, this is called a bad experience.

For enterprises, this is called supply chain risk.

For countries and industries, this is called the AI sovereignty issue.

If AI is the future entry point of productivity, then the entrance cannot be decided solely by a few security guards.

Second, operating rights.

Many people say:

“Aren’t there open-source models? Can’t you just download them?”

This statement sounds right but is only half correct.

Open-source models are like recipes.

Having the recipe does not mean you can open a restaurant.

You also need a kitchen, chefs, gas, supply chain, back-of-house management, delivery system, health permits.

In terms of AI, you still need GPUs, deployment, inference, scheduling, monitoring, post-training, tool invocation, and stable services.

Without these, an open-source model is like a fitness pass sitting on your hard drive:

It looks very free, but you’ve never gone.

If DeAI can organize the scattered computing power, models, and services, it will have the chance to turn "open AI" from a slogan into usable infrastructure.

Third, validation rights.

If a node tells you:

“I just ran it through the strongest model for you.”

How do you know it’s not just secretly running a cheap little model to fool you?

This is like you ordered Wagyu beef, and the kitchen serves you synthetic meat, and you have no way to see the kitchen.

So one very important thing in the future is verifiable inference.

It’s not “believe me, I really ran it.”

But rather “you don’t have to believe me, you can also verify that I ran it.”

This is what distinguishes DeAI from ordinary cloud services.

Centralized services rely on brand endorsement.

DeAI needs to rely on mechanism endorsement.

Fourth, data rights.

The interaction data of AI is worth a lot.

How you ask questions, how you modify, how you give feedback, how you debug, how you use tools, all these are important fuel for future model improvements.

Many users currently think they are using AI for free, but in reality, they may be paying with their own data.

It’s like you go to a restaurant for a free buffet, and after eating, you find out that you inadvertently contributed your home recipes, shopping lists, and bank card passwords to the kitchen.

DeAI has at least proposed a direction:

Can user data, model usage, node contributions, and value distribution be more transparent, traceable, and negotiable?

This is no small issue.

Fifth, the economic rights of Agents.

In the future, AI Agents will not just answer questions.

They may help you book tickets, trade, write code, call APIs, manage assets, and coordinate other Agents.

Then they will need identity, authorization, payment, auditing, permission boundaries, and accountable records.

These are areas that Crypto excels in.

Crypto does not excel at making AI smarter.

But it excels at enabling untrusting participants to settle, verify, and collaborate in an open network.

So the real point of convergence between AI and Crypto is not “AI generates meme images and then issues coins.”

That is called a cyber roadside stall.

The real point of convergence is:

AI needs running, validation, payment, identity, and settlement;

Crypto just happens to excel in validation, incentives, assets, and settlement within open networks.

These two things can bite together here.

Of course, DeAI is definitely not a panacea.

The biggest problem with many DeAI projects currently is treating the word “decentralization” as a universal glue.

Privacy unsolved, it’s called decentralization.

Latency unsolved, it’s called decentralization.

No users, it’s called decentralization.

No cost advantages, it’s called decentralization.

No value capture for the token, it’s also called decentralization.

It seems that as long as the project becomes decentralized, all problems will automatically line up to submit.

The reality is certainly not like this.

Decentralization will not automatically bring about cheapness.

Because coordination, redundancy, validation, network transmission all come at a cost.

Decentralization will not automatically bring about privacy.

If nodes can see your prompt or intermediate data, that may be even more stimulating than centralization.

Decentralization will not automatically bring about real demand.

Many early networks seem very lively, but in fact, they are just projects providing subsidies to make everyone pretend to be prosperous.

Decentralization also will not automatically make tokens valuable.

A protocol being useful does not mean the token will necessarily share in the profits.

So when judging DeAI projects, we cannot just look at whether it has AI, and we cannot just look at whether it has a chain.

We need to look at three things:

Is the technology truly runnable?

Does the demand really exist?

Can the value really return to network participants?

Missing one of these can easily turn into a large narrative magic trick.

My final judgment on DeAI is:

In the short term, it will certainly be a major harvesting zone.

In the long term, it will also certainly be a second system that the AI world needs.

In the future, there is a high probability that there will be two sets of AI infrastructures coexisting.

One set is centralized AI.

Strong performance, good experience, fast commercialization, like chain restaurants in a large shopping mall.

The other set is decentralized AI.

More open, more resistant to control, more verifiable, and more suitable for global collaboration, like a hot pot community where everyone can put their food on the table.

Centralized AI will not disappear.

DeAI will not be able to defeat the giants overnight.

But as AI becomes increasingly important, humanity cannot accept only one central kitchen forever.

So, is DeAI a harvesting concept of speculators?

Many projects are.

Is DeAI a true demand?

This direction itself is.

The distinction lies in:

Fake DeAI wraps a layer of AI skin around air, and then adds a layer of token around the AI skin.

Real DeAI turns a portion of power in the AI world originally controlled by giants into part of the open network.

The former sells emotions.

The latter fights for control.

So the term DeAI itself is worthless.

What is valuable is:

Which pot it has really snatched back from the central kitchen.

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