As the West is increasingly polarized between “capitalism and anti-capitalism,” Animoca Brands cofounder Yat Siu thinks Asia can lead the way in pioneering the next wave of AI and cryptocurrency innovations.
“Based on my experiences in crypto communities in Europe and the U.S., people are creating a gap between crypto and AI and saying that they shouldn’t be related,” Siu told Fortune on the sidelines of the SuperAI summit in Singapore. “In Asia, we don’t have this problem since we’re much more comfortable with money.”
But Siu argues AI and the blockchain are tightly connected. “To truly empower AI, you need to give it access to money so it can transact autonomously on your behalf… and the technology that can enable this safely, securely and at scale is blockchain,” he said.
Global consumers have been slow to adopt stablecoins compared to traditional methods of payment. Just $7 billion of annual settlements on Visa’s platform are made in cryptocurrencies, compared to $14 trillion overall.
Siu believes as many as 200 billion AI agents could soon be in operation. “Agents will do commerce with each other, they will negotiate with each other; and they’re going to negotiate not just business transactions, but also social interactions in relationships,” he said. (He currently taps 280 agents to perform different tasks on his behalf).
He’s less certain that credit card companies will be able to “protect their base” in a rapidly shifting payments landscape. In theory, blockchain-enabled payment mechanisms can cut out the middleman—whether credit card companies, traditional banks, or cross-border money transfer firms—and remove their usual margin on facilitating transactions.
“Agents just go for what’s better, faster and cheaper,” he said. “If your agent transacts with mine, do you think it’ll use a credit card which charges a 2.5% fee, or do an on-chain transaction which costs basically nothing?”
