YC has recently compiled a separate list of crypto startups, and the very first sentence is worth pausing on: For the first time in the past year, incremental growth in crypto has been driven by institutions, not retail investors. On the evening of October 28th (Beijing time), YC Interview Partner @nemild released the latest Crypto RFS, which was retweeted by the official @ycombinator account. The list is divided into four sections: Capital: Making AI financing easier with blockchain; the original text calls AI investment one of the largest financing events in human history; Stablecoins: New scenarios for USD stablecoins, new cryptocurrency stablecoins, new banking transactions targeting neglected populations; RWA tokenization, new trading venues and interfaces; Agents: Enabling agents to be traders, providing agents with crypto APIs. The document also includes the assertion that agents will become major financial participants, accessing these new assets and financial primitives through APIs provided by blockchain. Alphabet's Q3 earnings report, released on the same night, provided a footnote: $51.36 billion in capital expenditures, $42.29 billion in operating cash flow, and approximately $29 billion in new debt and $12.4 billion in equity issuance during the same quarter. To me, putting these two things together makes things clearer. AI is spending money faster than even the most profitable companies can generate their own cash flow; the money always needs to come from somewhere. YC is betting that a portion of it will come from on-chain. But the list isn't the conclusion. YC itself has stated that the best ideas might not be on this list. The deadline for timely applications is noon Beijing time on November 3rd. What's worth watching next is how many of these companies truly treat agents as users, not just concepts.