Yat Siu argues that AI agents are not just a software trend but the next phase of the web: a world where agents transact, discover products, manage tasks, and even reshape identity, fandom, media, and work. He frames blockchain and digital identity as the missing infrastructure for this agentic economy, and says Animoca’s new $10M investment program is aimed at that shift.
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This was a broad, interview-style conversation at Consensus Miami with David Lin and co-host Bonnie Chain speaking with Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands. The core thesis is that agentic AI is not merely a better chatbot layer, but a structural shift toward a new “web 4” where AI agents become the primary economic actors for discovery, transactions, personalization, and social interaction. Siu repeatedly tied this to blockchain: he argued that wallets, digital identity, and onchain certification are the right primitives for agent-to-agent commerce and authenticity. A major thread was identity and authenticity. …
Near term, this looks like a thematic setup around agentic AI, identity, and wallet infrastructure rather than a direct trade call. The immediate risk is that the market overprices the story before real agent adoption and monetization are visible.
Over the next few months, the base case is a broader rotation from generic AI tooling toward agent discovery, commerce, and identity rails if use cases start to work in practice. If agents remain mostly wrappers around existing software, the thesis weakens; if they begin handling transactions and discovery independently, the narrative strengthens.
Longer term, the thesis is that the web becomes agent-native: identity, commerce, and media are increasingly mediated by software agents rather than humans alone. If that happens, blockchain’s durable role is as the trust and settlement layer for machine-to-machine economic activity.
Agentic AI is not just another tool category; it is the next phase of the web and a new digital society layer.
Siu repeatedly distinguishes agentic AI from simple chatbot tooling and calls it web 4 / the metaverse coming to us.
Blockchain is the best infrastructure for agent identity, discovery, and agent-to-agent transactions.
He argues blockchain solves authenticity, wallet-based identity, and economic coordination between agents.
The future of work is orchestration: humans will be more valuable as managers of many AI agents than as single-task executors.
Siu says the most valuable skill will be managing agents well, not performing every task personally.
What happens when people can clone you and monetize you?
The guest says that having many versions of yourself is actually beneficial because you can effectively rent out your identity. He compares it to voice platforms like 11 Labs and to books, arguing that AI extends the same idea by letting a version of you do things for others.
How do you prevent people from impersonating others or deepfaking identities online?
He argues that blockchain-based digital identity and certification can solve authenticity problems. The idea is to let people verify themselves with only the minimum necessary data, rather than relying on centralized platforms like Facebook, Google, Apple, or passports.
Why is Anamoka making a $10 million investment in minds and agentic AI?
He says it is not really a pivot, but an extension of what the metaverse and gaming always aimed to become. He adds that Anamoka has historically made strategic investments in gaming, NFTs, the metaverse, and stablecoins, and now sees AI agents as the next major shift.
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