DCG founder Barry Silbert calls decentralized AI a generational opportunity, with an impact that may be greater than Bitcoin

According to a report by CoinDesk, Barry Silbert, the founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group (DCG), is heavily betting on decentralized artificial intelligence (DeAI), calling it "the next big era of crypto" and saying its impact could be even greater than Bit. In a letter to DCG shareholders, he emphasized that DeAI is the crypto industry's attempt to drive AI innovation and the integration of Blockchain technology. He believes that this technology combination will bring better dividends to humanity compared to the closed systems being developed by OpenAI and other tech giants. Silbert wrote: "We are moving from digital ownership of assets to decentralized ownership of intelligence, and the availability of massive decentralized computing resources." This development reminds Silbert of Bit, which first earned him crypto wealth, but unlike the financial revolution of Bit, DeAI may bring a revolution in power, using crypto as a mechanism to distribute the ownership and governance of powerful AI models. DCG has invested $105 million in more than 10 DeAI projects, and Silbert wrote: "We are excited to increase our investment in this area in 2025." He particularly highlighted DCG's investment in the machine learning and AI application crypto network Bittensor, which he believes is the closest to "escape velocity" in their portfolio. He also wrote that Bittensor's TAO token has many similarities to Bit. In November last year, DCG announced the establishment of a new subsidiary, Yuma, to support and promote the development of the decentralized AI network Bittensor. In addition, its digital asset management company Grayscale also launched a "Decentralized AI" fund product for institutional investors last year.