The core thesis for crypto in an AI world is that agents need a financial system that doesn't rely on human biometrics for authentication. By equipping agents with their own crypto wallets, platforms like MoonPay are building the infrastructure for them to transact autonomously, making crypto the native currency for a new machine economy.

Both speakers see crypto as a vital technology for a future with AI. It could provide a neutral, trust-minimized financial system for both humans and AI agents. By sharing this system, humans retain economic leverage and ensure their property rights are respected in a world where their labor may become valueless.

As AI agents become sophisticated, they'll need to pay for services. Traditional banking is too slow and fragmented for them. Crypto, as the internet's native money, provides the instant, global, low-fee rails for AI agents to transact with each other and with web services, creating a major new use case.

Andreessen predicts a unification of AI and crypto. As autonomous AI agents become widespread, their need to independently transact will create the first truly native, large-scale demand for internet money like stablecoins, making AI the killer app crypto has been waiting for.

Dragonfly's managing partner argues that attempts to apply crypto to non-financial domains have largely failed. Crypto's core, enduring value is as programmable money. Its next major growth vector will be serving as the native financial rails for AI agents to transact autonomously with each other.

AI and crypto are not competing but are parallel, complementary forces reshaping business. While AI revolutionizes company creation and internal operations, Internet Capital Markets (powered by crypto) are fundamentally rewriting the external functions of capital formation, trading, settlement, and ownership for this new generation of AI-native companies.

For an AI to operate autonomously—earning and spending money—it needs a native digital currency. Traditional financial systems are built for human or corporate entities, making it difficult for an AI to become a credit card merchant. Crypto provides the necessary 'internet money' infrastructure.

Developers are actively building wallets specifically for AI agents. These "agentic wallets" provide functionality like spending allowances and the ability to claw back assets, enabling controlled financial autonomy for AI. This trend indicates a practical, growing demand for crypto infrastructure to power the agent economy.

AI agents are turning to crypto not just for efficiency, but out of necessity. The traditional financial system is a dead end for non-human entities, as an AI cannot get a credit card or open a bank account. Crypto provides the permissionless financial rails required for AI agents to operate and self-replicate economically.