AI & Crypto Aren’t Dying: They’re Evolving

It always happen differently than you expect

Author

Saâd Dhif
February 25, 2026

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Let’s Zoom Out

Dear readers,

The AI trade isn’t over.
The crypto trade isn’t dead.

They’re rotating.

After a spectacular multi-year run led by Bitcoin, the Mag 7, and hyperscalers, fatigue is setting in. Sentiment is stretched. Short positioning is rising. Every week brings new “top” calls for AI or the four-year Bitcoin cycle.

But when bull markets get tired, they don’t die.

They evolve.

Phase Two: From Hyperscalers to the Real Economy

The last three years were about hyperscalers building compute. Data centers. GPUs. Model training.

That phase is maturing.

Now AI is spilling into operational industries.

Last week, a relatively unknown company claimed its AI platform could increase freight volumes dramatically. Major freight stocks sold off sharply on the headline.

Most dismissed it as noise.

It wasn’t.

AI is moving beyond chatbots and into margin compression across sectors. Trucking today. Airlines tomorrow. Consumer staples next.

This is what spillover looks like.

The Shift to Agentic Infrastructure

The acquisition of OpenClaw by OpenAI was not random.

It signals the transition from chat-based AI to autonomous agents.

We are moving from AI as a tool
to AI as an actor.

And once AI becomes agentic, it needs rails.

Agents must transact.
Agents must coordinate.
Agents must operate without centralized bottlenecks.

There is only one infrastructure designed for that.

Crypto.

Not just Bitcoin as digital gold.

Programmable, permissionless networks.

The Ignition Moment Most People Missed

At the end of last month, Moltbook - a Reddit-style interface where AI agents interact - went viral.

Most people laughed. Some panicked.

Few noticed what was happening underneath.

AI-agent tokens have been quietly accelerating. While the market debates Bitcoin cycles, infrastructure networks are building.

The narrative is shifting:

From store of value
To productive digital infrastructure

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The Narrative Shift: Store of Value vs Productive Assets

For years, Bitcoin dominated the narrative. Store of value. Digital gold.

It succeeded at that.

But in doing so, it pigeonholed itself.

Bitcoin’s primary use case is transferring and storing value. That’s powerful, gold has one of the largest market caps on earth but it’s narrow.

Altcoins, on the other hand, can behave more like technology companies.

They are networks.
They generate fees.
They enable applications.
They scale with economic activity.

We are potentially witnessing a macro transition:

From BTC as store of value
To alts as productive digital infrastructure

That’s a very different cycle dynamic.

Gold, Bitcoin, and Secular Rotation

Is it possible Bitcoin front-ran gold’s massive move over the last few years?

Maybe.

Gold has gone through decades-long dormant phases while equities entered secular bull markets. There isn’t a consistent long-term growth relationship between gold and stocks.

Meanwhile, NVDA, Meta, Palantir: they didn’t need gold to rally. They were tied to technological expansion and economic growth.

That’s much closer to how ETH, SOL, and high-utility alt networks behave.

They are tied to economic throughput.

If gold and Bitcoin are entering a consolidation phase after monster runs, while the business cycle begins heating back up, that favors productive risk assets.

Not in a straight line.

But structurally.

And if that thesis is right, we’re not talking about months of outperformance.

We’re talking years.

Big Money Is Already Moving

This is not theory.

Apollo announced a $90M purchase of Morpho tokens. BlackRock has been active on-chain. Institutional ETF flows were phase one.

Institutional on-chain allocation may be phase two.

Two years ago, this was unthinkable.

Today, it’s happening quietly.

What This Means

We may be witnessing a transition:

From BTC dominance
To infrastructure expansion
From centralized AI platforms
To decentralized economic rails

Bitcoin had its phase.

Now we may be entering the infrastructure phase.

The largest opportunities rarely look obvious in real time. They build underneath, while headlines focus elsewhere.

AI and crypto are not dying.

They are evolving.

And evolution creates opportunity.

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—
Saâd
from Swiss Islamic Finance