Bitwise's Hunter Horsley says AI Is ‘unstoppable freight train’ for crypto, while Haun’s Monica urges caution

Tech Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Bitwise's Hunter Horsley says AI Is ‘unstoppable freight train’ for crypto, while Haun’s Monica urges caution As artificial intelligence races ahead, some crypto executives believe it could become the force that finally pushes blockchain infrastructure into widespread use. Others aren’t convinced the leap is so straightforward. By Margaux Nijkerk | Edited by Stephen Alpher Feb 24, 2026, 9:29 p.m. Make us preferred on Google What to know : As artificial intelligence races ahead, some crypto executives believe it could become the force that finally pushes blockchain infrastructure into widespread use. Others aren’t convinced the leap is so straightforward. In a recent panel discussion at NEARCON 2026, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley described AI as “an unstoppable freight train,” arguing that its pace of development is unlike anything crypto has experienced. Diogo Monica, general partner at Haun Ventures and co-founder of Anchorage Digital, pushed back on the assumption that agentic commerce automatically requires new rails. SAN FRANCISCO, CA - As artificial intelligence races ahead, some crypto executives believe it could become the force that finally pushes blockchain infrastructure into widespread use. Others aren’t convinced the leap is so straightforward. In a recent panel discussion at NEARCON 2026, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley described AI as “an unstoppable freight train,” arguing that its pace of development is unlike anything crypto has experienced. “AI is accomplishing a quarter’s worth of roadmap every two weeks right now,” he said, suggesting that projections based on previous crypto adoption cycles may already be outdated. “You have to dump the last six years of data and cut it fresh from the last six months.” STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the The Protocol Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms & conditions and privacy policy . For Horsley, the implication is that public blockchains could benefit disproportionately from AI’s rise. “If there’s one space that will be an unmitigated benefactor of the adoption proliferation of AI, it will be public blockchains and crypto assets,” he said. As autonomous agents begin to act on behalf of users, he suggested, crypto-native tools may offer practical advantages. “Agents, obviously, you're not going to want to authorize OpenClaw with your credit card… You're gonna want to fund them with stablecoins. They're gonna want to transact confidentially,” Horsley said, pointing to stablecoins and onchain infrastructure as potential guardrails for machine-driven activity. Diogo Monica, general partner at Haun Ventures and co-founder of Anchorage Digital, pushed back on the assumption that agentic commerce automatically requires new rails. “There is a chance that the agent payments commerce looks exactly like the current payment commerce for the foreseeable future,” Monica said. “You are telling me that a superhuman intelligence cannot use the current payment rails, the current credit cards, the current instant settlement, to pay for things and to figure it out on their own.” “You can’t tell me that AGI is coming and agents are going to be super smart… and tell me that they’re not going to be smart enough to figure out different systems,” he added. Still, Monica acknowledged a deeper alignment between the technologies. “AI creates digital abundance and crypto versus digital scarcity. These are actually complementary technologies,” he said, adding that crypto’s privacy and verification tools could help mitigate some of the risks AI introduces. Whether blockchains become the default rails for autonomous commerce remains unresolved. But as AI accelerates, the debate over crypto’s role in that future is clearly intensifying. Read more: NEAR Launches Near.com super app, touting AI capabilities and confidential transactions Bitwise Asset Management Bitwise AI Haun Ventures More For You Mentioning 'bitcoin' or crypto on AI agent OpenClaw's Discord will get you banned By Shaurya Malwa Feb 22, 2026 The project's creator nearly deleted the viral AI agent after crypto scammers hijacked his accounts, launched a fake token that hit $16 million, and harassed him for weeks. What to know : OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger has imposed a blanket ban on any mention of crypto, including bitcoin, in the project's Discord after past turmoil tied to token speculation. The ban follows a January incident in which scammers hijacked OpenClaw's old accounts during a rebrand and promoted a fake $CLAWD token that briefly hit a $16 million market cap before collapsing. Security researchers later found hundreds of unsecured OpenClaw instances and hundreds of malicious skills, many targeting crypto traders, underscoring how speculative token culture nearly derailed the fast-growing open-source AI project. 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