Crypto’s Next Winners Won’t Be Blockchains

The guest sees crypto-AI and tokenized 24/7 trading as particularly attractive intersections, with Venice combining an off-chain consumer AI business, an on-chain VVV token, and tokenized-compute utility. Venice's Mines product extends that thesis by letting developers build structured AI applications on top of existing models, although its revenue potential remains uncertain.

Crypto is described as moving toward multimodel routing, with OpenRouter serving the developer-tooling market and Venice offering a consumer-facing version. That architecture supports Venice's broader bullish case, which assumes more than one million active users from roughly four million historical users and product distribution through social and messaging communities.

Venice's token economics are tied to business activity: revenue and free cash flow fund VVV buybacks and burns, while new subscriptions and API-credit purchases currently create additional burn activity. Locking VVV can mint DEM tokenized compute worth about one dollar per day of inference, but the speakers note that value capture is not guaranteed without the Clarity Act.

The guest's realistic Venice model projects annualized revenue rising from about $107 million to $336 million in 2027 and annualized burns increasing from roughly $8.3 million to $70 million. On that basis, the model targets approximately $43.90 for VVV versus about $16 at the time discussed, though this remains the guest's scenario rather than a settled outcome.

The guest favors crypto projects that pair rapid growth with reasonable valuations, particularly when cyclical capital flows create oversold pricing, and says his allocation moved from roughly 50% liquid and 50% venture in the first three quarters of 2024 to approximately 95% liquid. He attributes part of that shift to a bear market that helped identify five to ten compelling tokens.