Crypto's primary advantage is its ability to automate processes that rely on expensive human-based trust (brokers, lawyers) with software and cryptography, which offer mathematical guarantees at a fraction of the cost.

As AI makes it easy to fake video and audio, blockchain's immutable and decentralized ledger offers a solution. Creators can 'mint' their original content, creating a verifiable record of authenticity that nobody—not even governments or corporations—can alter.

Institutions define "institutional-grade" as having human safety nets, negotiating leverage, and someone to call. This directly contradicts the core crypto ethos of removing human intermediaries and soft power, creating an ironic tension for crypto protocols seeking institutional adoption.

While AI can generate code, the stakes on blockchain are too high for bugs, as they lead to direct financial loss. The solution is formal verification, using mathematical proofs to guarantee smart contract correctness. This provides a safety net, enabling users and AI to confidently build and interact with financial applications.

The rise of convincing AI-generated deepfakes will soon make video and audio evidence unreliable. The solution will be the blockchain, a decentralized, unalterable ledger. Content will be "minted" on-chain to provide a verifiable, timestamped record of authenticity that no single entity can control or manipulate.

Beyond technical features, Ethereum's core value is its "credible neutrality." The protocol doesn't favor any single user, allowing a Nigerian remittance app to have the same infrastructure access as JP Morgan. This fundamental fairness drives its network effect and widespread adoption.

The goal for trustworthy AI isn't simply open-source code, but verifiability. This means having mathematical proof, like attestations from secure enclaves, that the code running on a server exactly matches the public, auditable code, ensuring no hidden manipulation.

Historically, trust was local (proximity-based) then institutional (in brands, contracts). Technology has enabled a new "distributed trust" era, where we trust strangers through platforms like Airbnb and Uber. This fundamentally alters how reputation is built and where authority lies, moving it from top-down hierarchies to sideways networks.

For AI agents to be truly autonomous and valuable, they must participate in the economy. Traditional finance is built for humans. Crypto provides the missing infrastructure: internet-native money, a way for AI to have a verifiable identity, and a trustless system for proving provenance, making it the essential economic network for AI.