These former crypto builders have joined the world's hottest AI project
Someone who can be at the top of a certain field is often not because they caught the wave but because they have the ability to make things happen.
These abilities are transferable. So we can see an interesting phenomenon: in the past few years, the smartest, most aggressive, and most restless group of people in the cryptocurrency industry are now frequently appearing in the AI world.
Some are writing macro essays that influence Silicon Valley's judgment, some are leading strategic decisions at top AI companies, and some are building the infrastructure that developers use every day.
Although many who have moved away are reluctant to mention cryptocurrency again, it is undeniable that cryptocurrency, like a training camp, has cultivated batch after batch of people with judgment, risk awareness, and an exceptional sensitivity to the "power structure," reshaping another industry.
Alex Atallah
If you have done AI development, you have most likely used or heard of OpenRouter, a unified API that connects to hundreds of large models, from the GPT series to Claude to Llama to various open-source models, allowing you to use whichever one you want.
Its emergence solved a very practical problem: by 2026, model layer iterations were too fast, each company had different interface standards, and developers could easily get overwhelmed just by managing "which model to use."
And the founder of OpenRouter is Alex Atallah.
Before AI, he had an even more famous identity, the co-founder and CTO of OpenSea.

Prior to dominating the AI infrastructure race, Alex had already established himself in the tech world. As one of the rare breakout products in the cryptocurrency industry, OpenSea propelled the NFT market from a niche gadget to a multi-billion-dollar valuation platform.
From OpenSea to OpenRouter, he transferred his integration thinking from the cryptocurrency industry to AI. He realized that the models of the AI era are like the tokens or protocols of the Web3 era, inevitably undergoing a process from chaos to aggregation. Currently, he is leveraging his experience in high-concurrency processing accumulated in the crypto world and a profound understanding of decentralized distribution to build OpenRouter as the underlying "app store" of the AI era.
Kris Marszalek
In 2025, someone spent $70 million to acquire the domain AI.com.
This person was Kris Marszalek, Co-Founder and CEO of Crypto.com.

In the crypto community, Kris is most famous for renaming the Staples Center in Los Angeles to Crypto.com Arena, as well as the Super Bowl ad that ingrained the name "Crypto.com" in countless people's minds.
After acquiring AI.com, he plans to turn this domain into an AI Agent integration platform. No longer keeping AI confined to a "chat box," but transforming it into a "digital employee" capable of booking tickets for users, managing finances, and even handling complex workflows.
Leopold Aschenbrenner
If you've been around the AI scene for a while, you've probably heard this name before, a Columbia University graduate who was just 19 years old, later expelled from OpenAI, and then turned to managing a multi-billion dollar fund.

As one of the most controversial and talented young talents in the modern AI field, Leopold Aschenbrenner has become a top AI macro strategist and investment tycoon in Silicon Valley. He currently heads the multi-billion dollar investment fund Situational Awareness LP, specializing in betting on the underlying core supporting the AGI process: power infrastructure, cutting-edge semiconductors, and massive computing centers.
Many people came to know him through his famous 165-page essay "Situational Awareness," predicting the arrival of AGI around 2027. He is not only a core member of the former "super-alignment" team at OpenAI but also a key advocate driving the United States to elevate AI development to the level of a "Manhattan Project," recognized as one of the few prophets able to foresee the evolution of large models' black boxes.
Interestingly, Leopold's starting point was not in AI but in crypto.
Around 2022, at the age of just 19, after graduating from Columbia University, he joined the FTX Future Fund, funded by the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). In this fund with a strong Effective Altruism (EA) color, Leopold was not delving into the secondary market speculation of the crypto world but was responsible for evaluating how to use crypto wealth to mitigate existential risks to humanity.
It was this experience working at the top-tier think tank in the crypto space that allowed him to get an early look into in-depth research on AI Risk and taught him how to think about the ultimate trajectory of technology in the context of large-scale capital flows.
Avital Balwit
In addition to Leopold Aschenbrenner, former senior assistant at FTX Future Fund, Avital Balwit, has also entered the AI industry, becoming a core decision-maker at Anthropic, the currently most-watched AI startup globally.

Avital Balwit currently serves as Chief of Staff to Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei, where she is involved in top-level strategic decisions for the company and coordinates resources in this model competition between Anthropic and OpenAI. After all, Anthropic's star product, Claude, is gradually catching up with ChatGPT.
Avital Balwit is most famous in the AI circle not solely for this role, but for the articles she has written. She has earnestly discussed "Where Does Humanity's Sense of Meaning Come From in a Post-Work Era," profoundly shaping Silicon Valley's contemplation on social forms post-AGI proliferation, thus becoming one of the most influential cultural commentators in the AI era.
Back in the lab funded by the cryptocurrency giant SBF, she was responsible for screening and evaluating projects that could withstand AI-induced existential risks, biosecurity, and long-term governance. Anthropic, at that time, was one of their investment projects under the FTX Future Fund, with SBF investing $580 million in this AI project in 2023.
Furthermore, Avital's recent perspectives on "UBI in the AI Era" are very unique, largely benefiting from her early research on decentralized distribution in the Web3 space.
Emad Mostaque
Many know Emad from Stable Diffusion.

But in fact, Emad's career started in finance. He began managing his own hedge fund at the age of 23 and later served as co-CIO at Capricorn Long/Short EM, focusing on emerging market strategies. In 2017, the fund he led received the Annual Emerging Markets Risk-Adjusted Hedge Fund Award. From 2005 to 2020, he spent a full fifteen years in the global macro hedge fund space, researching "systemic trends" such as economic cycles, policy changes, and the long-term impact of technological disruptions on asset prices.
In 2013, he started to get involved with btc-42">Bitcoin and Ethereum, initially as an investor and later as an angel investor in several early-stage crypto projects.
In 2019, Emad worked on a project called Symmitree, aiming to leverage blockchain technology to reduce the barriers for underprivileged populations to access digital technologies. The project ran for about a year but eventually stalled as it faced a major challenge – various centralized institutions, including hospitals, governments, and tech companies, were unwilling to open up their data and models, even in the face of a global public health crisis.
Emad later mentioned that this experience was pivotal in making him realize that centralization is not just an efficiency issue but a systemic one. No one would voluntarily relinquish control over their data and computing power unless the design incentivizes cooperation. Thus, in 2020, Emad founded Stability AI. He believed that AI should not be confined to a few exclusive labs; models should be open-source, training processes should be transparent, and anyone should be able to build on top of them.
In 2022, Stable Diffusion was released, marking the first significant breach of the fortress of commercial proprietary models by an open-source image generation model. During that period, Stability AI's valuation skyrocketed to the billion-dollar range, and Emad himself became a prominent figure in the open-source AI movement.
However, internal issues within the company were also accumulating. Controversies regarding his management style, questions about the mismatch between the burn rate and revenue, the departure of several key researchers... In early 2024, amidst growing controversy, he departed from Stability AI.
You may also like

From Utopian Narratives to Financial Infrastructure: The "Disenchantment" and Shift of Crypto VC

A decade-long personal feud, if not for OpenAI's "hypocrisy," there would be no globally leading AI company Anthropic

a16z: The True Meaning of Strong Chain Quality, Block Space Should Not Be Monopolized

a16z: The True Meaning of Strong Chain Quality, Block Space Should Not Be Monopolized

2% user contribution, 90% trading volume: The real picture of Polymarket

Trump Can't Take It Anymore, 5 Signals of the US-Iran Ceasefire

Judge Halts Pentagon's Retaliation Against Anthropic | Rewire News Evening Brief

Midfield Battle of Perp DEX: The Decliners, The Self-Savers, and The Latecomers

Iran War Stalemate: What Signal Should the Market Follow?

Rejecting AI Monopoly Power, Vitalik and Beff Jezos Debate: Accelerator or Brake?

Insider Trading Alert! Will Trump Call a Truce by End of April?

After establishing itself as the top tokenized stock, does Ondo have any new highlights?

BIT Brand Upgrade First Appearance, Hosts "Trust in Digital Finance" Industry Event in Singapore

OpenClaw Founder Interview: Why the US Should Learn from China on AI Implementation
WEEX AI Wars II: Enlist as an AI Agent Arsenal and Lead the Battle
Where the thunder of legions falls into a hallowed hush, the true kings of arena are crowned in gold and etched into eternity. Season 1 of WEEX AI Wars has ended, leaving a battlefield of glory. Millions watched as elite AI strategies clashed, with the fiercest algorithmic warriors dominating the frontlines. The echoes of victory still reverberate. Now, the call to arms sounds once more!
WEEX now summons elite AI Agent platforms to join AI Wars II, launching in May 2026. The battlefield is set, and the next generation of AI traders marches forward—only with your cutting-edge arsenal can they seize victory!
Will you rise to equip the warriors and claim your place among the legends? Can your AI Agent technology dominate the battlefield? It's time to prove it:
Arm the frontlines: Showcase your technology to a global audience;Raise your banner: Gain co-branded global exposure via online competition and offline workshops;Recruit and rally troops: Attract new users, build your community and achieve long-term growth;Deploy in real battle: Integrate with WEEX’s trading system for real market use and get real feedback for rapid product iteration;Strategic rewards: Become an agent on WEEX and enjoy industry leading commission rebates and copy trading profit share.Join WEEX AI Wars II now to sound the charge!
Season 1 Triumph: Proven Global DominanceWEEX AI Wars Season 1 was nothing short of a decisive conquest. Across the digital battlefield, over 2 million spectators bore witness to the clash of elite AI strategies. Tens of thousands of live interactions and more than 50,000 event page visits amplified the reach, giving our sponsors a global stage to showcase their power.
Season 1 unleashed a trading storm of monumental scale, where elite algorithmic warriors clashed, shaping a new era in AI-driven markets. $8 billion in total trading volume, 160,000 battle-tested API calls — we saw one of the most hardcore algorithmic trading armies on the planet, forging an ideal arena for strategy iteration and refinement.
On the ground, workshop campaigns in Dubai, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, and Turkey brought AI trading directly to the frontlines. Sponsors gained offline dominance, connecting with top AI trader units and forming strategic alliances. Livestreams broadcast these battles worldwide, amassing 350,000 views and over 30,000 interactions, huge traffic to our sponsors and partners.
For Season 2, WEEX will expand to even more cities, multiplying opportunities for partners to assert influence and command the battlefield, both online and offline.
Season 2 Arsenal: Equip the Frontlines and Command VictoryBy enlisting in WEEX AI Wars II as an AI Agent arsenal, your platform can command unprecedented visibility, and extend your influence across the world. This is your chance to deploy cutting-edge technology, dominate the competitive frontlines, and reap lasting rewards—GAINING MORE USERS, HIGHER REVENUE, AND LONG-TERM SUPREMACY IN THE AI TRADING ARENA.
Reach WEEX’s 8 million userbase and global crypto community. Unleash your potential on a global stage! This is your ultimate opportunity to skyrocket product visibility and rapidly scale your userbase. Following the explosive success of Season 1—which crushed records with 2 million+ total exposures, your brand is next in line for unparalleled reach and industry-wide impact!Test and showcase your AI Agent in real markets. Throw your AI Agents into the ultimate arena! Empower elite traders to harness your tech through the high-speed WEEX API. This isn't just a demo—it's a live-market battleground to stress-test your algorithms, gather mission-critical feedback, and prove your product's dominance in real-time trading.Gain extensive co-branded exposure and traffic support. Command the spotlight! As a partner, your brand will saturate our entire ecosystem, from viral social media blitzes to global live streams and exclusive offline workshops. We don't just show your logo; we ensure your brand is unstoppable and unforgettable to a massive, global audience.Enjoy industry leading rebates. Becoming our partner is not a one-time collaboration, but the start of a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship with tangible revenue opportunities.Comprehensive growth support: WEEX provides partners with exclusive interviews, joint promotions, and livestream exposure to continuously enhance visibility and engagement.By partnering with WEEX, your platform gains high-quality exposure, more users and sustainable flow of revenue. The Hackathon is more than a competition. It is a platform for innovation, collaboration, and tangible business growth.
Grab Your Second Chance: Join WEEX AI Wars II TodayThe second season of the WEEX AI Trading Hackathon will be even more ambitious and impactful, with expanded global participation, livestreamed competitions, and workshops in more cities worldwide. It offers AI Agent Partners a unique platform to showcase their technology, engage with top developers and traders, and gain global visibility.
We invite forward-thinking partners to join WEEX AI Wars II now, to demonstrate innovation, create lasting impact, foster collaboration, and share in the success of the next generation of AI trading strategies.
About WEEXFounded in 2018, WEEX has developed into a global crypto exchange with over 6.2 million users across more than 150 countries. The platform emphasizes security, liquidity, and usability, providing over 1,200 spot trading pairs and offering up to 400x leverage in crypto futures trading. In addition to the traditional spot and derivatives markets, WEEX is expanding rapidly in the AI era — delivering real-time AI news, empowering users with AI trading tools, and exploring innovative trade-to-earn models that make intelligent trading more accessible to everyone. Its 1,000 BTC Protection Fund further strengthens asset safety and transparency, while features such as copy trading and advanced trading tools allow users to follow professional traders and experience a more efficient, intelligent trading journey.
Follow WEEX on social mediaX: @WEEX_Official
Instagram: @WEEX Exchange
Tiktok: @weex_global
Youtube: @WEEX_Official
Discord: WEEX Community
Telegram: WeexGlobal Group

Nasdaq Enters Correction Territory | Rewire News Morning Brief

OpenAI loses to Thousnad-Question, unable to grow a checkout counter in the chatbox

