Pantera Capital, a crypto investment firm, has established its objective to raise a new fund of $1 billion to inject new capital into the crypto industry.
As per Cosmo Jiang, the portfolio manager at Pantera Capital, over $200 million of the fund is designated for investments in artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives.
In a recent interview with DL News, Jiang expressed his conviction that AI will become a ubiquitous technology due to its integration into the operations of all crypto companies.
He likens investing in an AI firm to investing in a company with a website, asserting that it will become a standard business practice.
Consequently, Pantera Capital is pursuing AI projects to improve blockchain enterprises.
Significant Funding to be Allotted to AI by Pantera Capital
Pantera Capital, which has a portfolio with significant businesses like Coinbase, Circle, and Bitstamp, will allocate the new fund to AI-related blockchain initiatives.
Jiang anticipates that the new fund will allocate an even more significant portion of its capital to such initiatives than its predecessor, which invested approximately 15% to 20%.
Pantera Capital has the potential to invest more than $200 million in AI-adjacent crypto projects if the current trend persists for the remainder of the decade.
Although Jiang does not verify a particular figure, he regards it as a reasonable estimate.
The convergence of AI and blockchain technologies has attracted substantial attention, with projections indicating that it could contribute approximately $20 trillion to the global economy by 2030.
Since the commencement of 2024, investors have already invested more than $98.8 million in the sector.
Bitcoin miners are investigating opportunities to provide processing power for training AI tools utilized by Silicon Valley titans, as the total market value of AI tokens has exceeded $26 billion.
Pantera Capital is not the sole entity that has acknowledged the potential of the convergence of AI and blockchain.
Other industry actors, including hedge fund manager Brevan Howard, are investigating opportunities in this sector.
Three Major AI Blockchain Firms Merge
SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean Protocol are arranging a merger of their crypto tokens to create a decentralized AI platform and promote collaboration among the three companies.
The companies are investigating the development of an ASI token, which would have a wholly diluted value of approximately $7.5 billion.
Although the merger plans are contingent upon the approval of the respective communities, an official announcement could be anticipated as early as Wednesday.
In the proposed arrangement, the Superintelligence Collective, a newly established entity, would guide SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean Protocol as they continue to operate independently.
Nevertheless, not all individuals are optimistic about the potential of AI-related crypto tokens.
The AI token market’s recent surge may be more driven by speculation than actual utility, according to a recent research report from the leading crypto exchange, Coinbase.
In the short to medium term, the value potential of numerous AI tokens may be overstated due to the current focus on the AI industry, and these tokens may need more sustainable demand-side drivers.