[Compound Managing Partner: Crypto VC Activity Nearly Stagnant, Talent and Funding Shift to AI] According to Crypto Briefing, Michael Dempsey, Managing Partner of Compound, stated in an October 13, 2026 interview on the Empire podcast that crypto venture capital has been sluggish for nearly two years, nearing a standstill, a stagnation dating back to 2024. He believes that developers who once chased the crypto space have now turned to artificial intelligence, and funding has followed suit. Dempsey compared the current situation to 2021, when tech entrepreneurs flocked to the crypto space. He pointed out that the entire tech industry's attention is almost entirely focused on AI, causing talent and capital to flow from crypto projects to AI. Furthermore, Dempsey also mentioned the structural problems with token incentives, acknowledging the real potential of tokenization, but highlighting the difficulty in achieving long-term alignment of interests through token incentives.