Fundstrat
Fundstrat’s Tom Lee on Where Crypto Meets AI (ft. Virtuals Protocol)
11/5/2025, 10:23:17 PM
Economic Summary
- Hyperscaler/LLM CapEx over the next several years (trillions implied) is accelerating AI infrastructure, increasing demand for coordination and security layers where blockchain can play a role (relevant to ETH/BTC and infrastructure players).
- By 2026, the speakers expect enterprise demand for verified provenance of agent instructions to rise, creating a market for protocols that bundle payment, execution, and identity on-chain (benefit to Virtuals Protocol).
- Tokenization of productive autonomous agents creates new capital-formation and distribution models: launchpads can act as YC-like distribution and funding channels for agent founders, lowering customer acquisition and funding frictions.
- Blockchains solve three key agentic problems: trustless coordination (single source of truth), bundling of execution and payment to remove timing mismatches, and on-chain provenance/reviews to reduce search and selection costs.
- Current near-term product-market fit in the Virtuals ecosystem is crypto trading alpha: many specialized agents focus on on-chain due diligence, trading signals, and automated execution, driving early adoption.
Bullish
- Blockchain provides trustless coordination, bundled payment+execution, and on-chain provenance for agent transactions.
- Tokenization and launchpad distribution lower capital and distribution barriers for agent founders.
- Specialized fleets of agents outperform general LMs on niche tasks, enabling scalable app-level value.
- On-chain agent identity and reviews reduce search costs and enable market emergence for high-quality agents.
Bearish
- Agent hallucinations and information loss can break autonomous transactions without robust verification.
- Fragmentation of the agentic stack (coordination, payments, provenance) creates interoperability and adoption hurdles.
- Big tech and payments incumbents (Google, OpenAI, Coinbase/Stripe) could capture key rails and marginalize niche protocols.
- Regulatory and safety concerns around agents controlling wallets and money may slow deployment and product-market fit.
Bullish tickers
VIRTUALSETHBTCRBLXAIXPT
Bearish tickers
GOOGLOPENAICOINSTRIPE
VIRTUALS
Bullish
Protocol bundling coordination, payments, and provenance could become core infrastructure for the agentic economy and tokenized agents.
Bearish
Non-public protocol faces fragmentation risk from larger players and must solve interoperability and safety concerns to scale.
ETH
Bullish
Ethereum provides smart contract primitives enabling bundled execution and payments and serves as a natural settlement layer for agent transactions.
Bearish
Scalability and transaction cost volatility could hinder high-frequency agent commerce without layer-2 or alternative rails.
BTC
Bullish
As digital-native value, BTC can remain an important store-of-value or collateral in agent-led economic flows.
Bearish
Bitcoin's limited smart contract capability makes it less suited as a settlement layer for complex agent commerce.
RBLX
Bullish
Early use cases like autonomous NPCs on Roblox demonstrate demand for tokenized agent experiences and creator monetization.
Bearish
Gaming platforms must prove durable monetization for agent-driven experiences and face competitive platform risk.
AIXPT
Bullish
Highly specialized agents have outperformed general LMs on tasks like fact-checking and trading alpha, proving PMF in niches.
Bearish
Specialized agent projects risk commoditization if larger models or incumbents replicate their capabilities.
GOOGL
Bullish
Google's research and API ecosystem could capture large parts of agent coordination and search layers at scale.
Bearish
Google may solve coordination but lacks integrated on-chain payments, creating either a gap or a competitive dynamic.
OPENAI
Bullish
OpenAI's model capabilities and developer reach position it to be a major supplier of agent intelligence.
Bearish
OpenAI's centralized model approach may struggle to provide payment bundling and provenance without partners.
COIN
Bullish
Coinbase's payments and custody products can enable seamless fiat/crypto flows for agent commerce, accelerating usage.
Bearish
Coinbase and similar payments rails could absorb payment flows away from niche protocols, reducing their monetization.
STRIPE
Bullish
Stripe's payments infrastructure could partner with or enable hybrid on-chain/off-chain agent commerce models.
Bearish
Stripe's dominance in payments could lock in non-blockchain rails and limit on-chain payment adoption.
TIKTOK
Bullish
Autonomous influencers on TikTok demonstrated agents can autonomously generate revenue and user engagement.
Bearish
Platform control and policy changes could restrict autonomous influencer monetization.
People mentioned
Tom CoutureTom LeeJansen Teng