Crypto Is Not Losing to AI but Reflecting Capitalism at Work, Dragonfly Partner Says

AI agents can execute tasks and transactions autonomously, but they cannot readily open bank accounts, wait days for wire transfers or operate within a single national system. Coinbase co-founder and Chief Executive Brian Armstrong argues that crypto therefore complements artificial intelligence rather than competing with it, providing real-time, programmable money rails. He calls the emerging model Agentic Finance, or AiFi, built around Coinbase’s Base blockchain, the x402 payments protocol and the USDC stablecoin.

In a July 26, 2026 post on X, Armstrong dismissed calls for crypto companies to pivot to AI as “zero-sum, scarcity thinking,” saying AI’s rise makes digital-asset infrastructure more important. Chainalysis reported in June that AI-agent payments conducted through x402 on Base had exceeded 100 million transactions after roughly nine months of activity. Transactions worth at least $1 accounted for 95% of the total value transferred, the blockchain analytics firm said, offering an early measure of machine-to-machine payment adoption.

Dragonfly Capital Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi says the crypto industry is moving beyond its early science-fiction visions toward demonstrable commercial scale, with stablecoins emerging as critical infrastructure for cross-border payments and onchain finance. As the industry matures, the convergence of AI and crypto could also give rise to new models for transactions and collaboration.

In a recent interview, Qureshi said AI’s development to date has not been particularly radical and that the potential of combining it with blockchain has yet to be fully realized. Dragonfly Capital announced in April 2022 that it had raised $650 million for its third fund. He also stressed that remaining active through full market cycles, even during bear markets, is key to pursuing long-term returns.