Author: Ekko, Ryan Yoon
Original Title: What AI Services Are Crypto Firms Offering?
Compiled and Edited by: BitpushNews
FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is looming over cryptocurrency companies. From exchanges to security firms, they are racing to launch AI-driven services. This article explores why they are choosing to act now.
Key Points
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Cross-Industry Deployment: Crypto companies in exchanges, security, payments, and research are simultaneously launching AI services.
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Led by Giants: Unlike previous cycles, companies with mature profit models like Coinbase and Binance are taking the lead. AI has shifted from a 'narrative' to a 'business necessity'.
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Varied Departmental Motivations: Exchanges aim to prevent user churn; security companies aim to fill audit blind spots; payment infrastructure targets the emerging Agent Economy.
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Gap Between Adoption and Utility: 'Having a function' and 'actual use' are two different issues. AI FOMO and competitive pressure are accelerating AI adoption, even beyond proven practical demand.
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Genuine Need and Competitive Anxiety Coexist: Distinguishing between 'value-creating adoption' and 'label-sticking adoption' is a key issue.
1. Crypto Companies Are Comprehensively Offering AI Services
AI is the most watched field in the global market today. General-purpose tools like ChatGPT and Claude have entered daily life, while platforms like OpenClaw have lowered the barrier to building agents.
The crypto industry started late in this wave but is now integrating AI into every vertical.
What AI services are these companies offering? And why are they entering this market?
2. How Crypto Companies Are Adopting AI
2.1. Research
(Source: Surf AI)
Cryptocurrency research has structural problems: on-chain data, social sentiment, and key metrics are scattered across platforms and difficult to verify. General-purpose AI often returns inaccurate answers when handling cryptocurrency queries.
Projects like Surf address this by providing crypto-specific AI research tools that can integrate scattered data sources. Among all AI use cases in crypto, research has the lowest barrier to entry, requiring no programming or trading expertise.
2.2. Trading
(Source: Bitget)
Exchanges are leading the adoption of AI in trading.
Approaches vary: some exchanges directly open proprietary trading data to users; others allow users to issue natural language instructions to AI agents, which handle the entire process from analysis to execution in one step.
Exchanges have offered APIs for years. The difference now is the addition of a layer: interfaces like MCP and AI Skills enable non-developers to access exchange functions through AI agents. Tools once limited to developers are now accessible via natural language.
This aligns with a broader community shift. Non-developer users are increasingly building automated trading strategies through AI agents, with no code required. They describe the strategy, and the agent builds and runs the algorithm.
For exchanges, this is both an opportunity and a threat. As AI-driven users grow, loyalty to any single exchange weakens, as agents can execute trades anywhere. The reason exchanges adopt AI is simple: to quickly attract users and maintain platform activity.
Trading involves real asset management, requiring higher judgment and responsibility than research. But with the barrier to entry lowering, this field is also opening to average users.
2.3. Security / Auditing
(Source: CertiK)
Smart contract auditing traditionally relied on manual line-by-line code review, a process that is slow, expensive, and inconsistent across auditors. AI is now integrated into workflows: AI scans the code first, then human auditors conduct targeted deep dives. This increases speed and coverage without replacing auditors.
CertiK is a leading example. The company previously faced criticism for audited projects being attacked later. However, those incidents occurred outside the audit scope. An audit only checks the code at a specific point in time and does not include continuous monitoring.
CertiK uses AI to bridge this gap. It adds real-time post-audit monitoring, delivered via public dashboards. Because the expanded coverage is AI-driven rather than labor-intensive, both CertiK and the audited projects benefit.
In security, AI adoption is not about disrupting existing services but expanding the scope of human work: increasing precision during audits and filling post-audit blind spots. For blockchain security companies, AI is not a new business line but a tool to address existing weaknesses.
2.4. Payment Infrastructure
(Source: Coinbase)
AI agents need payment rails to participate in economic activity: paying API fees, buying data, and purchasing services from other agents. For agents, the most natural payment method is an on-chain wallet with stablecoins.
Two models are emerging. The first is a general-purpose protocol that embeds payments into HTTP requests, enabling automatic on-chain settlement the moment an agent accesses a paid API. The second is agent-specific payment plugins, where agents execute payments only within human-preset permissions and limits.
Payment infrastructure is the area most closely linked to stablecoins. However, because the payment entity is an AI agent rather than a human, fully functional models are not yet mature.
(Source: Circle)
USDC issuer Circle is also in the spotlight. The company released a proposal to connect its Gateway payment infrastructure with the x402 protocol and invited developers and researchers to review and contribute.
This is not yet a mature market, but the market has already begun pricing in this trajectory. A key driver behind Circle's rising valuation is the narrative of AI agent payments. The implementation timeline for payment infrastructure will be longer than the areas mentioned above, but it has become one of the most significant macro themes in the current market.
3. Why Crypto Companies Are Entering the AI Field Now
When ChatGPT was released in November 2022, neither the AI nor the crypto industry was ready. AI models were impressive but couldn't reliably perform tasks; the crypto industry was reeling from the FTX collapse and a comprehensive crisis of trust.
Since then, AI has made huge strides. Over the past year, all major models have significantly enhanced their capabilities and become practically useful. In contrast, the crypto industry in the same period merely 'leveraged' AI: AI-branded memecoins, non-functional AI agents, and marketing-driven slogans. Decentralized AI infrastructure projects kept emerging, but if honestly compared to equivalent native AI services, their quality was noticeably inferior.
The gap is now widening further. In the AI industry, infrastructure like MCP (enabling agents to directly call external tools) and OpenClaw (supporting no-code agent building) has made the agent era accessible. Crypto companies are only starting to act now.
The difference this time is who is acting. It's no longer new startups labeling themselves with AI, but companies with mature profit models: Coinbase, Binance, and Bitget. These companies have no reason to launch AI services merely as a marketing tactic. They are driven not by today's revenue, but by the fear of falling behind: FOMO.
(Source: FORTUNE)
This sense of urgency is clearly visible in the actions of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. He issued a company-wide directive requiring all engineers to get up to speed with AI programming tools within a week and fired employees who did not comply.
But we also need to stay grounded. Take trading automation as an example: agents can check prices and propose strategies, but how many users will actually trust an agent to hand over funds for live trading? Has the x402 protocol been applied in the real world yet?
Ultimately, AI adoption in the crypto industry is not about chasing trends. As the AI era arrives, companies are taking action to avoid losing their position. 'Having a function' and 'actual use' remain two different problems. But who is taking action is crucial.
Think of the AI industry as a swimming pool being filled with water. Those who jumped in before were just pretending to swim; those jumping in now are former national team surfers. No one knows how high the water will rise, or if this pool will become an ocean. But the crypto industry will not drown in the center of the wave.
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