Hoskinson predicts crypto will absorb AI within five to 10 years

Charles Hoskinson, the Cardano founder, argues that blockchain technology will eventually absorb artificial intelligence, much as cryptocurrency absorbed cryptography as a discipline. Speaking on the Deeptech Insights podcast this week, he said data center spending is growing tenfold year after year, while the electricity grid cannot expand at the same pace. He also said companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic must eventually become profitable, while the cost of pretraining new models is narrowing the path to profitability. Hoskinson expects AI to follow cryptocurrency's earlier pattern within five to 10 years, as blockchain networks address payments, alignment and data provenance. He argued that blockchain-based systems could create shared standards for acceptable behavior and free speech instead of leaving individual AI companies to set their own rules. He also said the infrastructure could track content origins and automate royalty payments when AI systems use other people's work. Hoskinson proposed pooling everyday phones and GPUs into a distributed training network instead of building more data centers. He compared the current AI expansion with the late-1990s fiber optic boom, when roughly 90% of newly laid cable remained idle for nearly a decade. He said AI could similarly shift toward smaller models running locally on devices such as Apple's M5 Mac Studio, with cryptocurrency serving as the coordination layer. Hoskinson also predicted that the CLARITY Act will not clear Congress until 2029. He blamed three missteps by the Trump administration, including tying crypto's public image too closely to Trump-branded tokens. The prediction came one day after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act on September 15, falling short of the 60 votes required.