Recently, my attention has been drawn to a rather controversial statement. The founder of OpenAI—who is supposed to be an industry idol in the crypto sector—has instead advised young people not to waste time on cryptocurrency. The statement has prompted the crypto community to make memes, but if you think about it more deeply, something more serious is going on behind the joke.

Market attention has indeed shifted drastically. If we look at the demand curve for talent and capital in the crypto industry versus AI, the trend is already very clear: demand for crypto talent is falling, while AI continues to rise. Some crypto OGs are starting to migrate. Shen Yu, one of the key figures in the early Bitcoin mining community, now talks more often about OpenAI than crypto. Anthony Rose from zkSync left after 4 years and moved into AI. Kyle Samani from Multicoin Capital—who is known for early bets on Solana—has also announced his exit from crypto to focus on AI, robotics, and other areas. What hurts is that he said crypto is “not as interesting as people imagine.”

But the most telling is Paradigm’s decision. This most “pure” crypto VC is raising a dedicated fund specifically for AI and robotics, with a scale of up to 1.5 billion dollars. Paradigm is not just any VC— they’ve backed Uniswap, Lido, Optimism, and dYdX. If they still believed crypto had a long runway, they wouldn’t need to create a separate fund for AI. But the fact is: funding deals in crypto have dropped sharply from 1,639 in 2022 to 829 in 2025. High-quality projects capable of absorbing investment at a multibillion-dollar scale are becoming rare. The infrastructure narrative is already too crowded.

On the other hand, when you look at the behavioral shift of the crypto community itself—they’ve started to become obsessed with AI. Crypto research has begun sharing tutorials on setting up OpenAI, personal workflows, and even some people are starting side businesses to teach beginners. There was an offline meetup called “Web4 China Tour,” promoted by OG Kong Jianping, held from February to March last time, covering 5 cities in China, with the main topics being OpenAI and Agents—there was almost nothing about crypto. This is not just trend-chasing anymore; it’s a genuine attention shift.

Why are crypto players so excited about AI? Because crypto is an industry with the highest concentration of “super individuals”—independent developers, traders, and content creators who naturally pursue tool efficiency. When AI can significantly multiply personal productivity, those who adopt first are the ones who move earliest. Plus, crypto’s core culture has a strong geek spirit and a worship for technology. Blockchain once felt revolutionary, but AI now feels even more revolutionary.

But realistically, it’s also because the crypto market is in a pause. AI keeps creating “something new,” while crypto is reorganizing old narratives. Without original innovation and without a significant wealth effect, the crypto ecosystem can only survive on external impacts such as prediction markets and RWA.

So coming back to the founder of OpenAI’s statement—controversial but factual. The smartest people are reallocating their time. We’re in a period where the wealth creation rate is slowing down, but technology productivity is exploding. The market demand curve has already shifted. Crypto alpha is shrinking, and the growth curve is flattening. Meanwhile AI keeps shortening problem-solving time—things that used to take a lot of time can now be solved in minutes.

Maybe in the future, what truly differentiates people will be taste, judgment, and personal meaning-making—not just a pure pursuit of efficiency. But for now, the trend is clear: talented people, money, and attention—everything is moving to AI. This isn’t an opinion; it’s an observable fact from their own actions.