Animoca Brands cofounder: Asia will lead AI-blockchain convergence
In brief
- Yat Siu predicts Asia will lead AI-blockchain convergence due to cultural adaptability and lighter regulatory friction than the West.
- Animoca Brands launched a $10 million fund targeting early-stage agentic AI ventures in June.
- Siu projects up to 200 billion autonomous AI agents will operate without human approval in the future.
- Animoca has backed over 600 AI and blockchain projects since pivoting from mobile gaming in 2018.
The case for Asian leadership
Siu's thesis rests on a striking projection: up to 200 billion AI agents will operate autonomously in the future, negotiating, transacting, and executing commerce without human approval. This scale of autonomous economic activity requires regulatory clarity and cultural acceptance — conditions Siu believes Asia is better positioned to provide.
The region's approach to finance differs fundamentally from the West, he argued. Asia's relationship with finance and innovation is less politically charged, making it more adaptable to rapid adoption cycles that both crypto and AI demand. Crypto, in particular, still triggers regulatory skepticism and institutional hesitation across North America and Europe, whereas Asian markets have moved past that friction.
Evidence on the ground
Siu pointed to concrete examples. Singapore hosts events like SuperAI, Hong Kong has been actively courting crypto firms, Japan has a regulatory framework for digital assets predating most Western equivalents, and South Korea's retail crypto trading volumes rival much larger economies. These aren't isolated incidents — they reflect systemic differences in how Asian jurisdictions approach financial innovation.
Animoca Brands itself embodies this thesis. The company started as a mobile gaming outfit in 2014, then pivoted into blockchain gaming and NFTs around 2018. Since that pivot, it has financially supported over 600 projects spanning AI and blockchain. The timing matters: Animoca moved into blockchain when Western institutions were still dismissing the space entirely.
A structural argument
Siu's case is cultural and structural, not purely technological. "The adoption environment matters as much as the technology itself," he said. This framing shifts the debate away from which region has the smartest engineers — a claim that's hard to defend — and toward which has the institutional and regulatory conditions to move fast.
Around June 1, Animoca Brands launched a $10 million fund specifically targeting early-stage agentic AI ventures. The timing — one week before the summit — suggests Siu wasn't merely theorizing. The fund signals Animoca's capital is flowing toward projects that assume Asian leadership in this space.
