Animoca Manufacturers chairman Yat Siu advised Consensus Miami 2026 that the metaverse is over as a shopper vacation spot, and that 100 billion AI brokers will change into blockchain’s main customers.
Abstract
- Yat Siu stated the pandemic-era imaginative and prescient of people dwelling in digital worlds was improper, and that the metaverse was a proof of idea for AI agent infrastructure reasonably than a shopper product.
- He predicted 50 to 100 billion AI brokers will ultimately function on the web, outnumbering people and transacting autonomously on blockchain networks.
- Animoca introduced a $10 million funding initiative for builders constructing AI agent functions by its Animoca Minds platform.
Animoca Manufacturers chairman Yat Siu advised Consensus Miami 2026 on Thursday that the metaverse, because the crypto business imagined it in the course of the pandemic, was by no means actually constructed for people.
“Where we’re landing is that the metaverse, the blockchain-based one, was really the proof of concept for agents,” he stated. “In other words, it was never really destined for humans as a prime consumer.”
The remarks mark a clear break from Animoca’s earlier positioning. The agency was among the many most outstanding advocates of the pandemic-era metaverse imaginative and prescient, which assumed customers would spend rising quantities of their social and financial lives in immersive digital environments.
Siu attributed that false impression to the distorting situations of COVID lockdowns, when it appeared distant digital life would change into everlasting. “Everyone thought, ‘Oh, we’re going to be at home, and we’re never going to travel as much anymore,’” he stated. “Which, of course, turned out to be quite the opposite.”
What comes subsequent: the agent economic system
Siu’s new thesis is that blockchain’s most scalable person base won’t be people however autonomous AI brokers. “I think the point is that it’s going to be more agents than humans,” he stated, estimating 50 to 100 billion brokers may ultimately function on the web.
On present inhabitants math, 10 to twenty brokers per human produces between 70 and 140 billion brokers globally. “Blockchain technology is the ideal financial system for machines,” Siu stated. “We, the humans, were basically the guinea pigs.”
The argument centres on a sensible drawback that has restricted crypto’s attain. Roughly 700 to 800 million individuals globally personal some type of cryptocurrency, however as crypto.information reported, fewer than 70 million actively use blockchain functions, largely as a result of the know-how stays too complicated for mainstream shoppers. AI brokers don’t face that barrier.
They work together immediately by code, require no conventional banking infrastructure, and might transact autonomously on-chain. As a part of the pivot, Animoca introduced a $10 million initiative for builders constructing AI agent functions by its Animoca Minds platform, framing brokers as its subsequent main funding class after the metaverse period closes.
