AIBlockchainOpinion
|3 min ReadAI Needs Crypto, Especially Now
Lucca Menezes
Senior Analyst
Published
Feb 5, 2026
The internet was designed for humans, but it's currently being overrun by machines. a16z Crypto argues that as AI drives the cost of generating fake voices, videos, and text to zero, the current web's trust model has collapsed.
The solution isn't better AI detection (a losing battle); it's cryptographic assurance. Here is the 5-point thesis on why the AI industry hits a wall without Crypto.
1. Re-Pricing "Fake" Humans
The core problem is economic: AI makes impersonation free. One attacker can spin up 10,000 "people" to spam a network or rig a poll.
The Fix: Proof of Personhood (PoP) re-introduces scarcity.
Blockchains make it expensive to be fake. While an AI can generate infinite accounts, it cannot generate infinite World IDs or biometric proofs. By binding a digital wallet to a biological human, crypto raises the "cost of attack" from near-zero to prohibitively high.
2. The Agent "Passport"
Right now, AI agents are siloed. A ChatGPT agent cannot easily interact with a Claude agent, nor can it carry its reputation or history across different websites.
The Fix: Portable Wallets.
Crypto wallets act as universal passports for AI agents. This allows an autonomous bot to move between platforms, execute tasks, and prove its authorization without being locked into a single centralized vendor's database.
3. Payments at Machine Speed
The traditional banking layer (Visa/Stripe) is structurally incapable of handling the AI economy. Agents need to make thousands of micro-decisions per minute—paying 0.05 fee among 50 contributors.
The Fix: Streaming Money.
Smart contracts enable "nanopayments" that settle instantly. This allows agents to transact autonomously, paying for resources per second or per byte, creating a fluid machine-to-machine (M2M) economy.
4. The Privacy Paradox
To prove you aren't a bot today, you usually have to dox yourself (uploading IDs to centralized servers). This creates massive "honeypots" of data that hackers (and AI models) can steal to train better fakes.
The Fix: Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs).
ZKPs allow users to prove specific facts (e.g., "I am a human over 18") without revealing the underlying data. This validates the user to the application while starving AI models of the raw personal data they need to learn how to impersonate us.
5. Decentralization as Defense
If a single company (like OpenAI or Google) controls the "Identity Layer," they become the ultimate gatekeeper of the internet, capable of de-platforming users or agents at will.
The Fix: Self-Sovereign Identity.
Decentralization ensures that users—not corporations—hold the keys to their digital existence. In an age where AI can generate infinite noise, controlling your own signal is the ultimate asset.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.