When the founder of OpenClaw advises young people to stay away from crypto

Author | Golem (@web3_golem)

On February 27, when a user asked OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger on X platform for “the best advice for a 20-year-old,” Peter Steinberger straightforwardly said, “Don’t waste time on cryptocurrency.” As the founder of one of the hottest AI products, Steinberger has not hidden his disdain for crypto. He has warned crypto practitioners not to harass him, and even users mentioning Bitcoin in OpenClaw’s Discord have been banned.

This blunt remark sparked a wave of memes and self-deprecating jokes in the crypto community. But unlike the market downturn and the crypto industry shouting “crypto is dead,” when “don’t waste time on crypto” was given as advice by a top AI entrepreneur to young people, it struck a nerve in the crypto industry.

It puts our anxiety front and center—crypto is no longer the best solution for young people today.

Looking back to 2011, OG in crypto and Bitcointalk founder Chang Jiao’s advice for college students to invest all 6,000 yuan in Bitcoin was seen as one of the strongest examples of the crypto industry’s long-termism and suitability for young people. But Chang Jiao himself has not always remained in crypto. In 2023, Bitcointalk stopped publishing crypto-related news and shifted to content about AI, the metaverse, and other fields. After switching to AI entrepreneurship in 2024, he disappeared entirely from the crypto scene.

Chang Jiao, who was once a trailblazer, has faced much criticism. Now, the crypto scene has been increasingly siphoned off by AI, becoming an undeniable fact. Talent is migrating, capital is reallocating, and attention is shifting.

Talent Migration: OGs Becoming AI Bloggers

Another OG in crypto, Shen Yu, co-founder and CEO of Cobo, is also one of the early Bitcoin mining figures. As a survivor through multiple cycles, Shen Yu often shares his understanding of market phases and investment insights on social media, making him popular in the crypto community.

Recently, Shen Yu has transformed from a crypto OG into an AI blogger. Over the past month, more than 80% of his social media content has been about OpenClaw, with little to no crypto-related posts. Shen Yu even joked about his successful transformation.

His exploration and focus on AI are mainly personal. His company’s business and his personal career still revolve around crypto. So, we can interpret Shen Yu’s obsession with AI as a good habit of actively improving oneself and keeping up with the times during “market downtime.” But the talent migration from crypto to AI is real.

A senior executive at zkSync, Anthony Rose, announced on February 4 that after four years at Matter Labs, he would leave and likely move into AI; Nader Dabit, director of developer advocacy at EigenLayer, also announced on February 5 that he was leaving EigenLayer to become growth lead at an AI company, saying he “joined the future.”

The most recent high-profile exit is Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, who announced he is leaving crypto to focus on AI and robotics. Kyle Samani is known for his early bet on Solana, so his departure has shaken confidence in crypto. Even more surprisingly, on the day he left, he disparaged the industry, saying, “Cryptocurrency is not nearly as interesting as many (including myself) once thought.”

Recommended reading: “Kyle Samani’s Exit from Crypto: Is There More to the Story?”

Capital Migration: Native Crypto VCs Starting to Allocate to AI

Native crypto VCs are also reluctant to waste more time in the crypto industry.

On February 28, The Wall Street Journal reported that Paradigm, a leading crypto venture capital firm, is planning to raise a new fund focused on AI and robotics, with a maximum size of about $1.5 billion. Paradigm is one of the most pure crypto-native capital firms. It gained fame in 2019 for investing in and incubating Uniswap. Since then, early investments in other crypto projects like Lido, Optimism, dYdX, and Blur have also been successful, making this “research-driven” VC a peer of a16z crypto.

This shift by Paradigm is highly symbolic.

If crypto were still in a period of rapid innovation, continuously generating projects capable of attracting billion-dollar investments, there would be no need for Paradigm to set up a dedicated fund for AI. But the reality is that infrastructure narratives in crypto (L1, L2, DEX, etc.) are highly competitive, and the number of high-quality early-stage projects with “paradigm-shifting” potential has become very limited.

Overall, there are no good projects left to invest in in crypto. Data shows that over the past four years, the number of crypto venture investments has declined annually. In 2022, there were 1,639 deals in the primary crypto market; by 2025, that number dropped to 829, with early-stage funding dropping from 50% to below 35%.

Source: What Can the Crypto Market Trade in a Year?

When there are no more crypto projects to invest in, AI, as a booming industry, naturally becomes the best target for crypto capital. From foundational large models to AI agents, from computing chips to robotics, AI can not only support large-scale capital but also continuously generate growth stories. It is now the largest capital pool globally.

For a VC managing over $12.7 billion in assets, the core question is never “is our faith shaken,” but “does the return function still hold.” As the number of viable projects in crypto declines, betting solely on crypto increases portfolio risk and reduces return elasticity. Under these circumstances, continuing to insist on “crypto-native” investments becomes irrational.

Therefore, Paradigm’s proactive expansion into AI is driven by industry trends, not just a strategic choice of a single firm. It signals the current stage of the industry.

Attention Shift: Crypto Players Obsessing Over AI

In terms of market attention, crypto is the industry most prone to piggybacking. Whether political hot topics, cutting-edge technology, or social headlines, whenever there’s a buzz, related projects or memes tend to emerge in crypto circles. Historically, whenever AI experiences a technological upgrade or product innovation, crypto circles have launched “Crypto + AI” projects or meme coins to attract attention.

After OpenClaw became popular, crypto players quickly jumped on the bandwagon—creating meme coins with the same name, promoting OpenClaw’s self-trading tokens, and betting on prediction markets to make money. But later, the focus shifted from “how to crypto-ify OpenClaw” to “how to truly use OpenClaw.”

Many crypto researchers now produce tutorials on installing and using OpenClaw, openly share their AI workflows, and even detail how to train personal AI agents to help with coding, research, and content creation. Some crypto KOLs have even started charging newcomers for OpenClaw installation services.

Offline AI exchange events organized by crypto groups are also packed with attendees. The most popular recent event was the “Web4 China Tour” led by OG in crypto, Kong Jianping. It ran from February 25 to March 8 across five Chinese cities, mainly focusing on OpenClaw and AI agents, with little to no crypto content.

This is no longer just riding the trend; it’s a genuine attention shift. Self-proclaimed progressive crypto players are now worried about falling behind in the AI era.

Crypto Offline AI Events Are Fully Booked

Why are crypto practitioners so obsessed with AI?

Crypto is inherently a “super-individual” industry, with many independent developers, traders, and content creators. These individuals naturally seek tools that improve efficiency to compensate for human limitations. When AI can significantly amplify personal productivity, crypto enthusiasts are among the first to embrace it.

Furthermore, crypto culture itself has a strong geek spirit and technological worship. Although “technological narratives” have been somewhat downplayed in recent years, most crypto players still believe that “underlying technology can change the world.” Today, AI is more associated with technological revolution than blockchain, naturally attracting crypto enthusiasts’ fervor.

Another practical reason is that the crypto market is in a lull, while AI continues to produce “new things.” Crypto is still restructuring old narratives. Without native innovation or significant wealth effects, the entire crypto scene relies on marginal externalities like prediction markets and RWA. In this context, AI offers new topics and cognitive stimulation, filling the spiritual void left by the slowing market.

It’s time to talk about something beyond crypto and AI

Finally, returning to the opening statement, the reason why OpenClaw’s founder’s remark drew attention isn’t because it was dismissive, but because it revealed a truth many crypto people are quietly acting on—the smartest people are reallocating their time.

We are now in a period of declining wealth creation speed and explosive technological productivity.

On one hand, as crypto cycles slow, alpha shrinks, and wealth growth flattens, the marginal returns of the past year’s “information chasing—hotspot chasing—profit chasing” behavior are diminishing; on the other hand, AI is compressing the time needed to solve problems. Tasks like coding, content creation, and other work that once took hours or days can now be done in minutes, with far higher efficiency.

When the process of “pursuing results” is highly condensed by AI, we may find ourselves with more free time to do things that aren’t driven by efficiency or profit—seeking “carbon-based meaning,” experiencing the world, building independent cognitive systems beyond market fluctuations, and establishing our own value coordinates.

In the future of AI, what may truly differentiate people is perhaps their aesthetic judgment, independent thinking, and personal meaning-making.