AI is the hot ticket right now. Venture capital firms like Sequoia, a16z, Lightspeed, and Y Combinator are pouring money into AI startups, while crypto prices have slumped. Yet Chainlink developer Patrick Collins pushes back hard, writing that global finance will inevitably be entirely powered by crypto—and that's an irreversible shift.
"Good Riddance" Attitude Gets a Thumbs-Down
Collins has seen many peers who entered Web3 around 2019/2020 leave for AI or prediction markets. Some in crypto say, "Now only true builders remain, things will be better." He disagrees: the industry needs talent, even if they don't fully embrace the ideals. Many people just want a good life, not to change the world—that's perfectly fine.
"Crypto Is Dead, Switch to AI" Doesn't Hold
Collins's core thesis: global finance will eventually be fully crypto-driven. Once you accept that, jumping to AI makes little sense. AI is amazing but it's a tool for building applications—including the future of finance. You can catch the AI wave, but you might miss a far bigger opportunity.
Why Blockchain Is Inevitable
He draws a parallel with gold, which holds a $35 trillion market cap as a trusted neutral store of value. Gold is portable? Not really. Crypto solves the tension between trust neutrality and usability. Money's three functions—store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account—can all be realized on blockchain.
Overwhelming Cost Advantage: 60x Cheaper
Collins contrasts NYSE and Uniswap: NYSE handles ~$80 billion daily volume, Uniswap ~$20 billion (4x gap). But headcount: NYSE parent company has ~12,000 employees; Uniswap runs with roughly 200 people—1/60th the operating cost. That's before considering censorship resistance and trust neutrality. DeFi is not only cheaper but also fairer.
Many in developed countries underestimate the value of trust neutrality. But once you see the high fees and T+2 settlement of traditional finance, you start asking why you pay so much and wait two days for stock clearing. Collins believes the hype cycles of NFTs, yield farming, and memecoins are behind us. Now real products like Aave, Uniswap, zero-knowledge privacy protocols, and stablecoins are offering low-cost, permissionless financial services globally. The whole world's financial infrastructure will eventually run on blockchain—and Collins is working to make that day come sooner.