Toward an internet built for machines

AI agents are everywhere now. We have been increasingly using them at Theta, as have our fund managers and many of their portfolio companies.

Until recently, most agents were essentially chat interfaces. That phase is ending. Agents are rapidly moving from assistants to operators: software that can perform complex tasks across the digital world, often thousands of times faster than humans. For lack of a better word, we’ll refer to this phase as ‘unhobbling’. By getting access to the same tools as us humans, to persistent memory and ever-increasing context windows, today agents can already work for many hours to complete much more comprehensive tasks while independently solving many complex problems on the way.

The next phase is now emerging, and it is as obvious as it will be impactful: agents are beginning to conduct real financial activity. And this is where it becomes clear why this topic belongs in a blockchain newsletter. Blockchain infrastructure provides permissionless, programmable, 24/7 financial rails. Exactly the kind of infrastructure these new, autonomous digital actors require. While traditional financial systems depend on fragmented intermediaries and human approval processes, blockchain networks allow software to transact directly, continuously, and globally. It is a natural convergence of technologies that we are witnessing right now.

Many companies in the blockchain ecosystem have been building for this future for years, and the first applications are starting to appear. For example, our portfolio company Giza recently launched a tool where you can literally watch your agent move between DeFi protocols, optimizing yield in real time. Making this work within our traditional financial infrastructure would be a non-starter. For blockchain rails, it is the obvious match.

Machines use machine-optimized infrastructure and blockchain is the backbone of this Internet for machines.

Also this week

• a16z crypto targeting around $2 billion for its fifth fund
• SEC submits framework to White House on applying securities laws to crypto assets
• NYSE parent ICE invests in crypto exchange OKX at $25 billion valuation amid tokenized stocks push
• Visa and Stripe plan global expansion of stablecoin card issuance product to over 100 countries
• Nasdaq seeks SEC approval for prediction-style binary options tied to flagship 100 index
• Kraken wins Fed master account approval, a first for the crypto industry

Relevant financial updates

• Block Street*, a unified liquidity layer for tokenized assets, had its TGE and is now trading at a $125mln FDV
• Opinion, a prediction market on the BNB chain, had its TGE and is now trading at a $363mln FDV
• OKX, a major global crypto exchange, has received a strategic investment from Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE parent) at a $25bln valuation
• ARQ (formerly DolarApp)*, a Latin America-focused crypto neobank, has raised $70mln in funding round with investments from Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund.
• Crossover Markets, an institutional crypto trading venue, has raised $31mln in a Series B funding round led by Tradeweb at a $200mln valuation with investments from Wintermute, DRW Venture Capital, Virtu Financial, and XTX Ventures
• QFEX, a derivatives-focused centralized exchange, has raised $9.5mln in a Seed funding round led by General Catalyst and Yuri Sagalov with investments from Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, and Moonfire Ventures
• Cyclops*, a stablecoin payments infrastructure provider, has raised $8mln in a Strategic funding round with investments from Castle Island Ventures, F-Prime Capital, and Shift4

*Underlying TBV portfolio position | Prices as per 06/03

Interesting things to read

• Cosmo Jiang and Sam Lehman from Pantera wrote about the financial rails of agentic commerce
• Bitwise Asset Management’s CEO explains why crypto is the next alternative asset class on The Rollup podcast
• “Some Simple Economics of AGI”: Christian Catalini breaks down his new paper on the a16z crypto podcast

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• Digital Asset Summit 2026 New YorkMar 27
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