The convergence of two of the hottest technologies of our times, artificial intelligence and blockchain, has given birth to a new kind of digital asset – they’re known as AI cryptocurrencies, and they’re one of the most exciting narratives to emerge this year.
AI crypto projects intend to democratize access to AI and rival the growing dominance of centralized players like OpenAI, Microsoft and Google, whose proprietary models currently rule the roost but bring grave concerns about accessibility and privacy.
By building AI models on blockchain networks, developers are creating decentralized, open-source ecosystems that prioritize user access, security and transparency. It’s an approach that aims to ensure AI benefits everyone equally, and not just the select few who can afford it.
AI cryptos have already made a huge impact on the industry, setting markets ablaze even before Bitcoin finally hit $100K. As we move into 2025, many believe these projects will enjoy even more time in the limelight, so what better time to take a look at some of those leading the charge?
Oraichain
Oraichain is playing a key role in bridging AI and blockchain, with a focus on linking AI application programming interfaces or APIs with smart contracts, essentially building what is the world’s first AI-powered data oracle.
Its technology enhances smart contracts by enabling them to access external AI APIs, and it’s initially focused on AI price oracles, but its ambitions go much further than that. AI-enabled smart contracts have enormous potential, Oraichain believes, as they can considerably improve the functionality of blockchains. In its vision, applications built on Oraichain will tap into external AI data, which will be acquired and validated in a decentralized way, increasing their capabilities.
Oraichain is currently pushing the concept of decentralized AI agents that can perform complex tasks on behalf of users with minimal supervision. With the recent launch of agents(dot)land, it’s giving developers the tools they need to create, customize and deploy AI agents on the Solana blockchain. Those agents will be able to perform crypto-related tasks, such as autonomous trading and portfolio balancing, participating in DeFi, and even creatin new tokens on behalf of traders.
The agents(dot)land is revolutionary because of its no-code interface, which makes it possible for anyone to create AI agents without any programming skills. It makes use of Distilled AI’s mesh platform to personalize user’s agents, giving them access to unique identities, external knowledge bases and more.
Antix
A pioneer of “digital human” technology, Antix is merging advanced AI models, lifelike graphics and immersive environments to enable anyone to create hyper-realistic digital humans that promise to set a new benchmark for digital engagement.
Antix’s technology integrates generative AI with high-performance game engines in real-time, transforming human faces into 3D models that can interact with real people in a conversational way. Trained on real people, its digital humans are capable of demonstrating extremely precise hand movements and facial expressions, and they can interact with people in almost any kind of scenario or conversation, creating more engaging digital interactions.
What sets Antix apart is the blockchain technology that underpins its platform, giving the creators of digital humans ownership of these AI-powered avatars, protecting their data and even supporting monetization. Each digital human is represented by an NFT, which proves its authenticity, while supporting the creative freedom of owners.
With Antix currently in talks over a seed funding round that could bring it an additional $2.5 million in funding, it’s poised to lead the charge into a new future where digital experiences feel more human than ever before.
OpenLedger
OpenLedger is looking to address the challenge of enhancing data quality to further the development of decentralized AI, and it’s doing this by building what it calls a “sovereign data blockchain”.
With its decentralized data infrastructure, its verifiable training mechanisms and its data quality enhancement techniques, OpenLedger is looking to help users manage information throughout its lifecycle and ensure users can track how it’s being used, promoting greater transparency and trust. Because it’s an open-source project, the community can play a role in this, boosting data quality through annotation, reinforcement learning algorithms and the incorporation of user feedback.
The core strengths of blockchain play a key role in OpenLedger. Because blockchain is immutable, it means data stored on OpenLedger cannot be edited or tampered with in any way, ensuring its authenticity and integrity. Moreover, the transparency of blockchain provides full visibility into how any piece of data is used or shared, fostering more trust within the ecosystem, while its decentralization makes it easier for users to control and own their data.
OpenLedger believes that having a sovereign data blockchain for AI can dramatically improve the performance of AI models, because high-quality verifiable information is the key to accuracy. At the same time, it can also help to eliminate model bias and give users more control over their data, ensuring they’re compensated fairly for their contributions.
GenLayer
Smart contracts aren’t actually that smart, but GenLayer is looking to change that through its work on building what it calls “intelligent contracts” instead.
Intelligent contracts are really just AI-powered smart contracts, but the fact they use AI does indeed make them much, much smarter. Because they’re powered by AI, they have the ability to understand and process both code and natural language, they can make subjective decisions, and they can even access the internet and gather information for themselves, without using data oracles or human intervention.
GenLayer says intelligent contracts will be able to execute tasks based on user’s spoke instructions, and gather data in real-time to fulfil whatever task they’re assigned to complete. They’ll be able to learn from their interactions, facilitate complex transactions and make decisions based on the data they find and its context.
According to GenLayer, its intelligent contracts will pave the way for a wide range of new possibilities, including AI-powered decentralized autonomous organizations or DAOs, information gathering and verification bots, adaptable DeFi protocols, new prediction markets, uncollateralized lending and more besides.
CrunchDAO
A research team made up of data scientists and financial experts, CrunchDAO aims to leverage the power of “collective intelligence” to produce predictive financial insights that can benefit everyone.
CrunchDAO has built up a network of more than 2,000 data scientists and over 400 PhDs, who work together to solve market predictions. Each week, its “crunchers”, as these community members are known, compete in a tournament where they’re invited to make blind predictions on a specified market. Those members who make the most accurate predictions earn prizes paid out in the DAO’s native cryptocurrency, CRUNCH, which is used by the community to pay for access to its collective research.
According to CrunchDAO, the research it generates is similar to that carried out by traditional investment banks, yet because it’s decentralized, it’s much more affordable.
CrunchDAO’s data signals are also converted into a portfolio optimization tool, which can help investors to determine which digital assets to buy or sell short, as part of an investment strategy.
CrunchDAO refers to this collective wisdom as “DeSci”, or decentralized science, and it makes it possible for asset managers and traders to access the knowledge and predictions of more than 2,000 expert traders and data scientists.
Its goal is to ultimately eliminate the centralized organizations that generate enormous profits from scientific research by providing better knowledge and making it available at far lower costs.
The Graph
As a decentralized indexing system that makes it easier to query any blockchain network, The Graph is set to play a key role in blockchain-based AI applications, feeding them with the vast volumes of data they need.
The Graph is an open-source protocol built on top of Ethereum and it is often referred to as the “Google for blockchains” because it works somewhat similarly to the internet search engine, collecting, storing and organizing data from decentralized ledgers and making it easier to search. Developers can utilize The Graph to access and analyze blockchain data much faster than they would normally, and this allows their dApps to process information and execute smart contract actions much faster.
The Graph makes data easier to access because of the way it indexes information via hundreds of indices known as subgraphs. These subgraphs sort blockchain data into more logical and manageable chunks, providing more structure compared to the more or less random way in which blocks are recorded onto the ledger. By indexing blockchain data in this way, it’s possible to search through it in a more efficient way.
There are numerous benefits to The Graph, including higher performance dApps, and also greater flexibility, as it now supports many blockchain protocols besides Ethereum, meaning developers can even use it for cross-chain queries.
By enabling developers to access and retrieve data faster, The Graph supports the creation of more reliable and user-friendly dApps that can react in real-time, advancing the goal of building a decentralized web that’s more transparent and secure than the existing centralized internet.
