Opinion by: Merav Ozair, PhD

Tech moguls cannot stop heralding the artificial intelligence revolution — from Bill Gates to Sundar Pichai to Jensen Huang — signaling that agentic AI and robotics will claim our jobs and act as our autonomous assistants performing on our behalf in our professional and personal lives.

Whether these scenarios happen in a few years or are decades away, we will most likely evolve into that future in some manner, and technology, once again, will reshape our lives. Without the support of blockchain technology, however, it would be quite difficult, and potentially impossible, for agentic AI and robotics to evolve to what its proponents expect them to.

If we expect these services and devices to act autonomously, security, privacy, transparency and accountability will be at the top of our minds. These areas are where blockchain shines and can support AI weaknesses to facilitate the scaling and evolution of this vision. 

Blockchain strengths support AI weaknesses

Blockchain technology can significantly bolster the security of AI models by leveraging its key features such as decentralization, immutability, traceability, smart contracts, data privacy and identity verification. For example, but not limited to:

The decentralization aspect eliminates a single point of attack, increasing the resilience of AI models against breaches. 

The immutability of blockchain ensures that the data used in training AI models and the models themselves cannot be illicitly altered, maintaining the integrity of the models. 

Every alteration or decision made by the AI model can be audibly traced through blockchain, providing unparalleled transparency and accountability. 

Smart contracts automate the enforcement of data access and usage rules, preventing unauthorized or unethical use of AI models. 

Smart contracts can ensure that data is only used for training and testing and by authorized personnel, locking the option to be used for other purposes. Combining these rules with multiparty computation could prevent or at least mitigate AI adversarial attacks. 

Blockchain allows secure multiparty computation, ensuring data privacy during AI model training by keeping the data decentralized. 

Blockchain’s secure identity verification enhances the safety of AI systems by preventing unauthorized access. 

Integrating AI with blockchain can establish a secure, transparent, traceable and decentralized AI environment, protecting our privacy, enhancing accountability and manifesting responsible AI.

Transactions: Programmable AI meets programmable blockchain 

AI agents and robotics are programmable. Smart contacts, the driver of digital assets, are programmable. It makes perfect sense that digital assets would be the preferred payment rail for agent-to-human and agent-to-agent, which includes robotics.

Crypto is an internet-native, programmable money with several advantages for powering the agent-based economy. As AI agents become more autonomous and engage in micro-transactions at scale, crypto’s efficiency, borderless nature and programmability will make it the preferred medium of exchange over traditional fiat rails.

Recent: Sentient open-source AI search outperforms GPT-4o and Perplexity

The true intersection of Web3 and agentic AI for financial transactions could emerge through new tokens and protocols tailored for this use case. These could extend stablecoin capabilities by integrating agent-specific functionalities.

In this scenario, payments could be made using a specialized asset that agents can stake for quality control. Slashing policies could penalize poor performance, while validators could resolve disputes based on task quality.

Additionally, agents’ reputations could be directly tied to their token stakes. Incorporating rules via smart contracts enables users to have control over their autonomous workers/assistants, enabling a shutdown or even a “kill switch,” if necessary, when AI agents start behaving dangerously. 

If Goldman Sachs wants to create AI agents that think and act like a seasoned employee in a highly regulated industry and with imperative risk to financial systems and at the extreme financial markets’ stability, it would be vital, not optional, to have these AI agents controlled by programmable tokens.

While this approach requires advancements in both Web3 and agentic AI, it is not as distant as it may seem.

Blockchain development firm Skyfire recently launched a payment platform that allows AI agents to spend money autonomously. Helmed by former Ripple vice president of products and services Amir Sarhangi, the company’s platform enables a business to give a pre-loaded wallet to an AI agent.

The company’s protocol converts the cash into USDC (USDC). In early March, Skyfire brought its payments network that enables AI agents to make autonomous transactions out of beta.

Using digital assets for robotics, VR devices and agentic AI transactions goes beyond a mode of payment for transactions. It could enhance user experience and security and enable endless business models that have never existed.

It would be interesting to see how it all plays out and whether other companies will follow.

There are risk issues to be addressed, however, and we should be mindful of how they are, at the very least, mitigated. This is where we should carefully consider the security measures discussed previously.

Stepping out of “tunnel vision” to a multifaceted approach

There is a lot of focus on the evolution of AI — generative AI, agentic AI, reasoning models, physical world models and more — all focusing on the premise that AI is the sole technology that we need to achieve AI autonomous agents at scale.

This is quite a tunnel vision approach to how products are built, and it is somewhat myopic: not understanding what needs to be accomplished beyond AI models’ advancement for the ecosystem to evolve and scale.

AI, advanced as it can be, cannot stand on its own and needs the support of blockchain technology — a programmable match made in heaven. Therefore, we must act in a multifaceted approach. We should think about and treat AI and Web3 together in terms of innovation, regulation and infrastructure. This is fundamental to the bedrock of a successful agentic economy.

“Dreams are built with solid foundations,” and the time to build them is now.

Opinion by: Merav Ozair, PhD.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

US crypto exchange Coinbase has filed with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to launch futures contracts for Ripple’s XRP token.

“We’re excited to announce that Coinbase Derivatives has filed with the CFTC to self-certify XRP futures — bringing a regulated, capital-efficient way to gain exposure to one of the most liquid digital assets,” stated Coinbase Institutional on April 3. 

The firm added that it anticipates the contract going live on April 21.

According to the certification filing, the XRP (XRP) futures contract will be a monthly cash-settled and margined contract trading under the symbol XRL.

The contract tracks XRP’s price and is settled in US dollars. Each contract represents 10,000 XRP, currently worth about $20,000 at $2 per token.

Contracts can be traded for the current month and two months ahead, and trading will be paused as a safety measure if spot XRP prices move more than 10% in an hour. 

“The exchange has spoken with FCMs (Futures Commission Merchants) and market participants who support the decision to launch a XRP contract,” the firm stated. 

Coinbase is not the first to launch XRP futures in the United States. In March, Chicago-based crypto exchange Bitnomial announced the launch of the “first-ever CFTC-regulated XRP futures in the US.” 

XRP futures trading is available on many of the world’s leading centralized crypto exchanges, such as Binance, OKX, Bybit and BitMEX. 

Funding rates remain negative

In late March, Cointelegraph reported that XRP derivatives’ funding rates had flipped negative as investor sentiment turned bearish. 

Related: XRP funding rate flips negative — Will smart traders flip long or short?

Funding rates are periodic payments between traders in perpetual futures markets that help keep the futures price aligned with the spot price. Positive funding rates mean that long traders (buyers) pay short traders, while negative funding rates mean short traders (sellers) pay long traders. 

When funding rates go negative, it means short traders are willing to pay a premium to maintain their positions, indicating strong conviction from bearish derivatives traders. 

XRP funding rates remained negative on major derivatives exchanges as of April 4, according to CoinGlass. 

XRP OI-weighted funding rates. Source: CoinGlass

Magazine: XRP win leaves Ripple a ‘bad actor’ with no crypto legal precedent set

European Union regulators are reportedly mulling a $1 billion fine against Elon Musk’s X, taking into account revenue from his other ventures, including Tesla and SpaceX, according to The New York Times.

EU regulators allege that X has violated the Digital Services Act and will use a section of the act to calculate a fine based on revenue that includes other companies Musk controls, according to an April 3 report by the newspaper, which cited four people with knowledge of the plan.

Under the Digital Services Act, which came into law in October 2022 to police social media companies and “prevent illegal and harmful activities online,” companies can be fined up to 6% of global revenue for violations.

A spokesman for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, declined to comment on this case to The New York Times but did say it would “continue to enforce our laws fairly and without discrimination toward all companies operating in the EU.”

In a statement, X’s Global Government Affairs team said that if the reports about the EU’s plans are accurate, it “represents an unprecedented act of political censorship and an attack on free speech.”

“X has gone above and beyond to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, and we will use every option at our disposal to defend our business, keep our users safe, and protect freedom of speech in Europe,” X’s global government affairs team said.

Source: Global Government Affairs

Along with the fine, the EU regulators could reportedly demand product changes at X, with the full scope of any penalties to be announced in the coming months. 

Still, a settlement could be reached if the social media platform agrees to changes that satisfy regulators, according to the Times. 

One of the officials who spoke to the Times also said that X is facing a second investigation alleging the platform’s approach to policing user-generated content has made it a hub of illegal hate speech and disinformation, which could result in more penalties.

X EU investigation ongoing since 2023

The EU investigation began in 2023. A preliminary ruling in July 2024 found X had violated the Digital Services Act by refusing to provide data to outside researchers, provide adequate transparency about advertisers, or verify the authenticity of users who have a verified account.

Related: Musk says he found ‘magic money computers’ printing money ‘out of thin air’

X responded to the ruling with hundreds of points of dispute, and Musk said at the time he was offered a deal, alleging that EU regulators told him if he secretly suppressed certain content, X would escape fines. 

Thierry Breton, the former EU commissioner for internal market, said in a July 12 X post in 2024 that there was no secret deal and that X’s team had asked for the “Commission to explain the process for settlement and to clarify our concerns,” and its response was in line with “established regulatory procedures.” 

Musk replied he was looking “forward to a very public battle in court so that the people of Europe can know the truth.”

Source: Thierry Breton

Magazine: XRP win leaves Ripple a ‘bad actor’ with no crypto legal precedent set