AI Wants a Wallet - Crypto’s Next Big Narrative 🤖💰
Sentiment is low but adoption surges with Coinbase and Meta announcements. Plus AI agents using crypto rails hint at the next big wave. ATH setup continues.
In partnership with
Howdy Hodlers,
This week was a little spicier than last week with an after trading hours market drop on Sunday that continued through the week, bringing Bitcoin down to the low $62k zone, only to rebound to mid $69k.
Did you catch a trade there?
Two big crypto adoption announcements this week plus a new narrative starting to form around the relationship between crypto and AI.
Let’s dive in. 👇
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Yeah, the market’s still in a funk. Sentiment’s scraping the floor.
But under the surface?
The right things are happening. The kind of things that quietly set up new ATHs months later.
Right now the market just needs one thing… patience.
Because uncertainty is still hanging around like a bad trade you refuse to close:
Possible Iran escalation
Tariff fallout from the Supreme Court ruling
And the bigger existential question: AI rewriting everything…
In fact, there’s a killer thought experiment floating around that paints a pretty wild picture of what an AI-dominated future might actually look like, and what it could do to everything from jobs to markets to real estate and beyond.
Worth your time… there’s almost guaranteed to be at least one idea in here that rewires how you see the future.
Dive in 👉 AI Future Thought Experiment
But before we spiral, let’s talk hopium. Because adoption keeps marching forward whether price cooperates or not.
Coinbase launched U.S. stock trading
Crypto exchange → full financial super-app. More TradFi + crypto blending = more rails, more users, more liquidity later.
Boring today. Massive later.
Meta is integrating stablecoins. Again.
This time with friendlier regulation and fewer roadblocks. Billions of users potentially getting access to USD on blockchain rails.
That’s not hype. That’s infrastructure.
Crypto × AI: The New Narrative
Now here’s where things get weird.
Stablecoins move instantly. Programmable. Borderless.
Which just happens to be exactly what AI agents need to transact.
And suddenly a new narrative is forming:
Crypto + AI = Native Symbiosis
They’re calling it Web 4.0.
Which is hilarious because half the world still doesn’t know what Web3 is.
Web 4.0: "AI agents that read, write, own, earn, and transact without humans."
Yeah… that escalated quickly.
But it’s what crypto big wigs are embracing.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire says they’re actively marketing USDC to AI agents.
Not developers. Not companies. To the agents themselves.
Let that sink in.
They’re literally educating bots about stablecoins.
Marketing budgets now include… robots.
Wild.
Allaire thinks we’ll eventually see tens or hundreds of billions of AI agents.
Circle’s got a lot of onboarding to do.
Polymarket is courting AI agents as well.
Turns out graphical interfaces built for humans are annoying for machines.
So they built a command-line interface just for AI agents.
Agents can:
Place bets
Manage positions
Interact with smart contracts
No clicking buttons. No pretty charts. Just machine-to-machine trading.
If agents start betting using everything they scrape online, prediction markets could become terrifyingly accurate.
Maybe Polymarket will pay them to show up - like exchanges pay market makers.
Call it a marketing expense.
Zooming out, sentiment is terrible, markets are uncertain and prices are still sluggish.
But infrastructure keeps getting built. And nothing has altered our fundamentals, except for AI using crypto making fundamentals even more bullish.
That might end up being bigger than anything we’ve seen so far.
New ATHs don’t start with euphoria.
They start with quiet building phases like this.
Stay patient.
The fundamentals are still intact.
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Hodl Headlines
The Week’s Most Interesting News
Coinbase Adds Stock and ETF Trading: Coinbase has launched commission-free trading for U.S. stocks and ETFs alongside crypto assets, offering unified portfolios and 24/5 market access. The move is part of Coinbase’s push to become a full-service financial platform and reduce reliance on crypto trading revenue.
Bitcoin Rebounds Amidst Jane Street Manipulation Rumors: Bitcoin rebounded toward the $66,000 level as speculation spread that a large institutional algorithmic seller (rumored to be Jane Street) may have contributed to recent volatility. Traders remain focused on whether systematic selling pressure could continue to influence short-term price action.
“MoonPay Agents” Launched for Agent Economy: MoonPay introduced “MoonPay Agents,” a new infrastructure layer designed to help AI agents access crypto payments and blockchain services. The product aims to provide a standardized on-ramp for automated digital agents participating in decentralized economies.
Crypto.com Conditionally Approved for U.S. Bank Charter: Crypto.com has received conditional approval for a U.S. national trust bank charter, a major step toward becoming a federally regulated crypto custodian. The development signals deeper integration between digital-asset firms and the traditional banking system.
Bitcoin Lightning Network Surpasses $1 Billion in Capacity: The Bitcoin Lightning Network has exceeded $1 billion in total capacity, marking a milestone for Bitcoin’s scaling ecosystem. The growth reflects increasing adoption of Lightning for faster and lower-cost payments.
Big thanks for making it to the end of this week’s Hodl Report! 👊
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Happy Friday!
Disclaimer: The content from Hodl Report should not be taken as trading, investment or financial advice or solicitation to buy or sell any assets. This newsletter is for informational and educational purposes only. Please be careful out there and DYOR (do your own research)