CZ’s Bold Vision: Cryptocurrency Emerges as AI’s Ultimate Value Exchange Protocol
Forget traditional finance—the real money is in machine-to-machine transactions.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) just dropped a bombshell: crypto isn't just for humans anymore. He's positioning digital assets as the fundamental plumbing for artificial intelligence economies. Think autonomous AI agents trading computational power, data sets, or API calls—all settled instantly on-chain, no human bankers taking their cut.
The Seamless Settlement Layer
AI doesn't sleep, doesn't take holidays, and certainly won't wait three business days for a SWIFT transfer. CZ argues that cryptocurrencies offer the only viable settlement layer for the hyper-speed, global transactions that AI systems will demand. Smart contracts automate trust. Tokens represent any asset—data, compute, storage. It's a financial operating system built for silicon-based intelligence.
Bypassing the Legacy Gatekeepers
This vision cuts out the middleman entirely. Why would an AI pay hefty fees to a traditional financial institution when it can execute a peer-to-peer atomic swap? The model suggests a future where value flows directly between creators and consumers—or more accurately, between algorithms and other algorithms. It renders much of today's fintech infrastructure obsolete.
A Provocative, Yet Inevitable, Convergence
Is it speculative? Absolutely. But it's also a logical endpoint. As AI gains agency, it needs a native financial system. CZ's bet is that system will be crypto—decentralized, permissionless, and running 24/7. It's a future where the most active 'traders' might not even understand the concept of a quarterly earnings report. They'll just see efficient markets and act. The real question isn't if this happens, but which blockchain they'll use. And yes, the irony of AIs potentially getting rekt by memecoin volatility is a finance jab too delicious to ignore.
CZ believes cryptocurrency is an effective method for exchanging value for AI
Earlier, CZ shared his vision for the future of cryptocurrency at the WebX event in Tokyo. For better understanding, he broke this point down by connecting digital assets with AI and recent policy revisions.
The former Binance CEO began by praising US President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto stance and his contribution to establishing US crypto policies. Some of these policies he approved included stablecoin laws and the Genius Act. Nonetheless, CZ condemned central bank digital currencies.
Afterwards, the Binance founder stressed that embracing new technologies is crucial to maintaining a global competitive edge. At this moment, CZ asserted that cryptocurrency will naturally emerge as the leading method for exchanging value for AI, displacing traditional money, banks, and credit cards.
According to Zhao, blockchains’ application programming interfaces (APIs) outperform banks in terms of integrating with AI-driven economic activities.
Meanwhile, since stepping down from his position at Binance, CZ has demonstrated a commitment to education and advisory roles. To support this claim, sources noted that he offers advice to more than 12 governments on effective ways to regulate and adopt cryptocurrencies.
To further illustrate his dedication to backing the crypto ecosystem, CZ made clear his intentions to mentor startup founders and support early-stage initiatives through EZ Labs, his investment company. These plans emphasize the significance of ethical conduct and the establishment of long-term value.
CZ warns that everything in the crypto ecosystem is about to undergo change
As the Binance founder continued to emphasize the vital role of the crypto Industry, he mentioned that his main goal is to see crypto-AI agents with tokens illustrating real utility. CZ raised this concern after arguing that almost all the available ones are useless.
To explain this argument, Zhao noted in a fireside chat at Token2049 in Dubai, that, “Today there are so many different AI agents with a token, but agents don’t have a utility. I want to see real agents with real utility that can really help you with tokens. There are AI token launchpads where you click a button and get an AI named after you. That token is useless — 99.99% of them are useless.” He further added that, “What we want to see is real AI agents that can use things.”
CZ warned that AI will completely revolutionize the crypto user experience and how users interact with blockchains. This could consist of customer support, the app experience, and risk monitoring, among other updates. To demonstrate the seriousness of the situation, the former Binance boss insisted that everything is about to change in the crypto industry.
According to Zhao, the crypto industry’s development before AI was unfortunate, as it may have been forced to shift its focus to AI to leverage its benefits.
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