AI is increasingly adopted in Web3 as well, with new integrations announced each day

Cointelegraph Accelerator recently hosted a roundtable discussion on X Spaces, bringing together venture capitalists to find an answer.

A recent discussion on X Spaces, organized by Cointelegraph Accelerator, brought together venture capitalists to delve into the trends shaping the crypto landscape and their thoughts on the opportunities and challenges on the horizon.

The panelists included Nikola Santoni, partner at Lemniscap; Ivan Li, founding partner at Comma3 Ventures and Michael Zajko, co-founder of Lattice. Together, they covered topics such as the current state of crypto investments, key trends and factors that will shape the landscape in 2025, and the biggest barriers to mass adoption.

Listen to the full conversation on X Spaces:

Get a head start on the trends

Santoni kicked off the conversation by highlighting the importance of assessing future demand rather than chasing current trends.

“Obviously, the intersection of crypto and AI, with AI agents, has accelerated tremendously, which is impossible to ignore. But what stands out is how quickly the narratives and attention spans are changing, from retail investors to the media to institutional investors. This is what we need to be aware of when investing.”

Shedding light on Lemniscap’s approach, the partner explained that the company focuses on identifying natural market demand and teams with potential for product development.

“We tend to build conviction very early on. A key consideration is whether the product you originally envisioned makes sense in the long run.”

Zajko agreed, adding that to be successful, you need to invest before something becomes a hot trend, not after.

“Typically, venture investments have a 5-7-year timeline, and we can see some examples like DeFi Summer, where investing at the peak would have meant missing out on earlier opportunities like Uniswap and Aave.

We are investing in something that may not be available for several years. This trend has played out year after year with DeFi, NFTs, gaming and now decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). We have been big proponents of DePIN, and there are many exciting projects, but the path to market and token launch for a really high-quality project is much longer because they’re using real-world infrastructure. Some of the DePIN tokens are coming to market this year, and there’s going to be a lot of exciting opportunities in that space.”

Li added that it’s risky to chase all the chains.

“If you’re a trader in the open market, you can chase these narrative changes in the short term because there’s a lot of liquidity. But in primary investments, there is no liquidity, so it is a very risky game. The long timelines - three years to TGE and another year for lock-ups and vesting - only add to the risk. The key is to invest before a project gets off the ground.”

He disclosed that Comma3 Ventures doesn’t see a bright future for EVM-based blockchains and keeps the focus on somewhere else.

“I suggest everyone take a closer look at Move-based blockchains like SUI. If you compare SUI to EVM, it’s like today’s Tesla to Ferrari 30 years ago. Our portfolio at Comma3 Ventures currently covers about 85-90% of the total value locked up in the entire SUI ecosystem.”

More complex AI is coming

Zajko mentioned that the excitement around AI is largely due to its rapid development within Web2, but most AI-related projects in crypto today take a simplistic approach.

“It’s a good way to speculate, and frankly, there’s still a very strong product-market fit in crypto for anything you can speculate on. What stands out to me is that developers are taking a more cautious approach. I think they’re looking at what actually works and delivers long-term value rather than just launching a token for retail speculation. A lot of these projects won’t come out right away, but I do expect to see more advanced AI agents this year that do things that aren’t just tweeting.”

According to the co-founder, AI can be divided into two main areas:

“Enterprise AI includes decentralized compute projects like io.net and Render Network. Then you have the more retail-focused projects that are still in development. And there are a number of more platform-oriented projects that haven’t launched tokens on the enterprise side, like Ritual or Sentient. So I would expect to see a reemergence of that category. They’re coming out in the second half of the year, and their tokens should bring new energy to decentralized AI.”

Younger generation will push crypto adoption

Li highlighted the double-edged nature of regulation, saying that without a clear legal framework, there will be issues with AML, taxes and even the ability to take innovative risks within a proper structure, which is a huge risk for founders and investors. On the other hand, regulation also opens the door to institutional capital, even from conservative sources such as pension funds.

For Li, regulation is also a matter of global competition: "It's a