Jonathan King: This Is How Crypto Actually Becomes Useful | DSH #1725

Summary

Digital Social Hour – Episode Summary

Podcast: Digital Social Hour
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Jonathan King, Principal at Coinbase Ventures
Episode: “This Is How Crypto Actually Becomes Useful” | DSH #1725
Date: December 31, 2025

---

Overview

In this episode, Sean Kelly sits down with Jonathan King from Coinbase Ventures during the AI4 conference to explore how crypto is evolving from a speculative asset into a pillar of utility-driven digital infrastructure. The conversation focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain, the future of programmable money, real-world crypto use cases, and exciting trends in the on-chain startup ecosystem.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Intersection of AI and Crypto

• Crypto x AI Thesis:
  Jonathan explains Coinbase Ventures’ conviction that the combination of crypto’s open, programmable infrastructure with AI's intelligence and automation will reshape digital commerce:

  "When you combine crypto's programmable and open infrastructure with AI's intelligence and automation, you can unlock massive new use cases and really transform the way humans as well as agents transact within the digital economy." (A, 00:00 & 03:04)

• Agentic Commerce:
  The rise of 'agentic commerce' is discussed, described as autonomous AI agents transacting on blockchain for payment, content, and service fulfillment:

  “These are autonomous software entities programmed with objectives. They need programmable dollars to pay for services, content, and accomplish tasks.” (A, 01:23)

• AI Augmenting Human Workflows:
  AI agents, rather than replacing people, are positioned as tools to reduce cognitive load and improve productivity, operating 24/7, especially useful in always-on crypto markets:

  “These agents are always on. They're scanning the market, looking for opportunities. Humans need to sleep. You could entrust agents to transact on your behalf, with guardrails.” (A, 02:35)

2. Crypto Use Cases & Mainstream Utility

• Utility Beyond Speculation:
  The third crypto bull run (“the fun one”) marked a shift from speculation to real utility.

  “We’re moving beyond being a purely speculative asset, actually building utility-driven, Internet-native infrastructure.” (A, 04:27)

• Buying Real Things with Crypto:
  Crypto is now useful for real world transactions:

  “These days you could buy almost anything with crypto… I bought my house with crypto. People buy watches, people buy cars.” (B, 04:49)
  “With stablecoins and digital dollars, you can exchange value anywhere around the world for less than one second, less than one cent.” (A, 04:55)

3. Coinbase Ventures’ 2025 Investment Strategy

Jonathan outlines four key areas of focus:

1. Stablecoins & Payments:

   • Making money programmable, broadening participation in the on-chain economy.

2. Decentralization of Financial Stack:

   • Removing intermediaries, enabling features like posting Bitcoin as collateral to borrow USDC—no banks, no paperwork.

3. Consumer & Social Applications:

   • Giving creators and users ownership and financial incentive for content and engagement.

4. Crypto + AI Enablement:

   • Democratizing access to compute/data/models; enabling agentic commerce and AI-driven transaction flows.

“We’ve been focusing on… stablecoins and payments, decentralizing the financial stack, new social applications, and this intersection of crypto and AI.” (A, 05:17)

4. What Coinbase Ventures Looks for in Founders

• Blend of Skills:
  • Technical depth, vision clarity, actual problem-solving, and an unreplicable go-to-market strategy.

  “Founders that can effectively blend technical depth with clarity of vision… not just building a solution in search of a problem.” (A, 07:28)

• Team Composition:
  • Preferably a mix of crypto-native and AI-native expertise for relevant sectors.

5. Real-World Examples, Trends, and Startups

Startups Cited:

• Vana Network:
  Allows users to upload private data for model training and receive incentives.
• Open Gradient:
  Open model hub offering thousands of composable, verifiable, open-source AI models.
• Elsa & Giza:
  AI agents within the Base app that can transact on your behalf for anything from ordering pizza to DCA (dollar-cost averaging) strategies.

“Inside the Base app you can transact with AI agents—to order pizza using stablecoins or buy tokens and create your DCA strategy.” (A, 13:08)

Agentic Commerce Example:

• AI agents proactively handle tasks and purchases, like planning travel or shopping:

  “Agents can anticipate your needs… ‘Hey, I’m going out to this AI4 afterparty tonight and need something to wear. Can you order me something?’” (A, 14:04)

6. Memorable Quotes

• On Crypto’s Open Model:

  “We’re creating a new economy that is open and permissionless for anyone to participate in.” (A, 11:41)

• On Investing Through Adversity:

  “I held throughout this whole bear market… I rode Ethereum all the way down to like $800.” (B, 11:18)

• On Crypto’s Practicality:

  “Layer by layer, we’re updating the financial system using crypto and blockchain infrastructure.” (A, 04:55)

---

Notable Moments & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | Notable Quote/Summary | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Crypto & AI Thesis | See quote above | | 01:22 | AI Agents on Blockchain | “There are autonomous software entities…” | | 02:28 | AI Reducing Cognitive Load | “AI agents being used to reduce the cognitive load…” | | 04:49 | Crypto Used to Buy Assets | “I bought my house with crypto…” | | 05:17 | Four Pillars of Coinbase Ventures’ 2025 Strategy | List of focus areas | | 07:28 | What Makes a Great Founder | “Blend technical depth with clarity of vision…” | | 10:06 | Coinbase Credit Card Incentives | “Up to 4% for your spend. And you know, you can earn Bitcoin.” (A, 10:10) | | 13:08 | Base App and In-App AI Agents | “You can transact with AI agents… order pizza… DCA.” | | 14:04 | Agentic Commerce Examples | “Agents can anticipate your needs…” | | 15:24 | Real-life AI Planning | “LLM created my entire itinerary for France.” | | 11:41 | Crypto as a New Permissionless Economy | “We’re creating a new economy that is open…” |

---

Tone and Atmosphere

The episode maintains an upbeat, forward-thinking tone throughout. Both Sean and Jonathan are enthusiastic, sharing personal anecdotes about crypto’s explosiveness and resilience, often expressing excitement about the practicality and ongoing advancements in decentralized finance, programmable money, and the AI-agent-driven future.

---

Conclusion

This conversation offers a firsthand look at how crypto is stepping beyond its speculative roots into everyday, highly integrated use cases powered by AI—and provides a practical, optimistic forecast for on-chain economies and digital commerce. Jonathan King’s insights provide clarity into what the next wave of blockchain adoption could look like, and what Coinbase Ventures is betting on to usher in that future.

Transcript

[A]

Yeah, we published our kind of crypto and AI thesis last year. And our core premise is that when you combine crypto's programmable and open infrastructure with AI's intelligence and automation, you essentially can kind of unlock massive new use cases and really transform the way humans as well as agents transact within the digital economy. So we've been kind of investing in the picks and shovels infrastructure that can kind of enable that new digital economy. And really excited to see, like, the progress unfold today.

[B]

Okay, guys, we got Jonathan King here from Coinbase Ventures. He's a principal there. We're at the AI4 conference.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

We are talking about how AI is intersecting with crypto, right?

[A]

Yes, yes. Yeah, really excited to be here.

[B]

What was your roundtable about this morning?

[A]

Yeah, so the roundtable this morning was talking about this emerging concept of agentic commerce and how AI agents will transact on top of blockchain infrastructure structure.

[B]

Right.

[A]

For orchestrating money movement using stable coins or for verifying their output and just creating general, like, more trust in the system, essentially, and how crypto can play a role in solving some of those challenges for AI.

[B]

So when you say AI agents transacting on the blockchain, is that an actual, like, AI, not a human?

[A]

Yeah, it is. It's an actual AI is. There are autonomous software entities that are programmed with some set objective. And we think that in order to accomplish some of those objectives, they essentially need programmable dollars. Right. To pay for services, pay for content, in order to accomplish their goals and tasks.

[B]

So I guess how does that help having an AI do that versus a human?

[A]

So the way that we kind of think about it is that really, like, AI agents being used to augment human workflows.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

You still need a human in. In the loop essentially, to kind of set parameters, define the guardrails, but AI agents being used to kind of like, augment some of these more complex work workflows.

[B]

That's so interesting. So the future of crypto trading and stock trading might be AIs.

[A]

Yeah, we. We believe so. Right. I think that, you know, generative AI and natural language interfaces will become the primary transaction modality, whether you're trading stocks or you're trading with crypto. And we're already seeing example of that. Examples of that play out today.

[B]

I mean, to me it makes sense because a lot of humans lose money based off emotional trading. So if you can have an AI kind of not have emotions. Right.

[A]

Yeah, you almost think about it as in, you know, AI agents being used to reduce the Cognitive load for humans.

[B]

Right.

[A]

These agents are always on 24. 7. They're scanning the market, they're looking for opportunities. And so, you know, humans, we need to sleep. So you could kind of like entrust the agents to transact on your behalf again with, you know, certain guardrails and parameters that's defined by the end user.

[B]

Yeah, that's a good point. Because crypto markets 24 7, it's not like stocks, Right?

[A]

Exactly. It's always running, always running, always on.

[B]

Was AI agents a big investment for Coinbase Ventures recently?

[A]

Yeah, we published our, you know, kind of crypto and AI thesis last year. And our core premise is that when you combine crypto's like programmable and open infrastructure with AI's intelligence and automation, you essentially can kind of, you know, unlock like massive new use cases and really transform the way like humans as well as agents transact within the digital economy. So we've been kind of investing in the picks and shovels infrastructure that can kind of enable that new digital economy. And really excited to see like the progress unfold today.

[B]

I love that. How long have you been in crypto and where do you see it heading?

[A]

Yeah, so I actually joined crypto probably back in 2017. I was working in the oil and gas industry where, you know, the hype was all about the Internet of things. And you know, crypto was early. Ethereum was the first like smart contract platform. And so thinking about, you know, tracking assets, ensuring providence and you know, kind of like public ledgers in a sense. And so that's where the crypto aspect really came in. I always kind of followed the industry, had been in like the product space for quite a bit of time and then decided to, you know, kind of join the crypto industry full time when I joined Coinbase ventures back in 2022.

[B]

Nice. So the third Bull Run. Yes, that was a fun one.

[A]

That's how.

[B]

That's kind of when I went pretty hard.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Yeah. Because the 2017 one I didn't have that much exposure.

[A]

Same.

[B]

But the third one I was, I was ready for that one.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think like at, you know, this kind of like third bull run essential, like the crypto industry has made such, you know, massive advancements where we're kind of moving beyond just being a pure speculative asset to actually building utility driven Internet native infrastructure. So it's been cool to kind of see like the applications and use cases that have evolved over that, over that period.

[B]

I mean, these days you could buy almost anything with crypto.

[A]

Yes. You can it's nuts.

[B]

Like I bought my house with crypto. Like people buy watches, people buy cars.

[A]

People. Yeah, cars. Any type of assets. All right? And so like, you know, with the emergence of things like stablecoins and digital dollars, you can exchange value anywhere around the world for less than one second, less than one cent. So we're really kind of updating the financial system layer by layer using like crypto and blockchain infrastructure.

[B]

What's the overall investing strategy right now in 2025?

[A]

So in 2025 I would say that we've been focusing on, you know, four areas this year that we see having promising traction. The first one being like I mentioned, you know, just stable coins and payments, right? We want to create like programmable money, allow merchants to accept stable coins as a form of payment and allow anyone to kind of participate in like this on chain economy. The second area is really like decentralizing the financial stack. And when I say that, I like essentially removing the intermediaries. So most recently our Coinbase Exchange app, you can go to the application and if you have Bitcoin, you can post your bitcoin as collateral and borrow usdc. Right? And you know, you're not signing any paperwork, you're not talking to a bank. In that case you're just using the on chain financial rails. Next would be thinking about like, you know, new forms of consumer and social applications that can be built on top of crypto, where you're really giving creators as well as users ownership of their content. Right. And you're providing them the financial incentive to create as well as take part of like the upside that they help to create through like some of the engagement. And then lastly to your point and why, you know, we're here at AI for is really like again exploring this intersection of like crypto and AI. How do you democratize access to things around like compute data and models using blockchain infrastructure? How do you kind of enable stablecoin powered agentic commerce where you kind of make it very simple for either agents to transact with humans or agents to transact with with other agents. And then lastly, like I mentioned, like the crypto AI space is like where we've been spending, spending a lot of time and excited to be here.

[B]

Smart. I mean there's 8,000 people here.

[A]

Exactly. Yeah. It's actually very impressive, right, to kind of come to a generalist AI conference and learning about some of the challenges and you know, how crypto can play a role.

[B]

I don't know if you knew this, but the organization that put on this event only has 13 full time employees.

[A]

Wow, I did not know that. And to kind of see that level of scale and how organized this event is, that's actually very impressive.

[B]

And they said 12,000 next year they got to go to the Venetian.

[A]

Yeah, I heard that they're going to go to Venetian. Yeah.

[B]

It's exciting times now. I'm sure you get hundreds, maybe even thousands of pitches. What do you look for in a founder?

[A]

It's a really great question. So I think the first thing is like founders that can effectively blend their technical depth with clarity of vision. Right. And be able to speak to what is the value prop of the solution that they're building. So, and not just building a solution in search of a problem. Right. Like there's actual demand, right. That they're, that they're trying to solve for. And then lastly having like a very effective go to market strategy, right, that's almost near impossible to, to replicate. And I think the founders that can navigate those three areas are the ones that do exceptionally well. And then ultimately like Coinbase Ventures, you know, our remit is to back exceptional founders that share Coinbase's broader mission of just how do we increase economic freedom in the world and then ultimately build this kind of on chain economy?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Do you like seeing the founders paired up? Because usually the founder is more a visionary guy, right?

[A]

It depends. It really depends on like the sector. I would say like for crypto and I, I would like to see founding teams that have a blend of like crypto native expertise as well as AI native expertise. Right. I think that's like kind of table stakes to invest in that sector. Whereas in other sectors, right, it could be a founder. Let's say if they're building stablecoins and payments and they're targeting large enterprises, then you want to see a founder that has really strong business fundamentals. They know how to approach like the GTM side and they're effective at hiring the right talent that can build out the underlying infrastructure. So case by case. But I think the strong mix of teams that can kind of circumvent those three areas is like where we want to back.

[B]

I feel that.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Shout out to today's sponsor, Quince. As the weather cools, I'm swapping in the pieces that actually gets the job done that are warm, durable and built to last. Quince delivers every time with wardrobe staples. They'll carry you through the season. They have fall staples that you'll actually want to wear, like the 100% Mongolian cashmere for just $60. They also got classic fit denim and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up. By partnering directly with ethical factories and top artisans, Quince cuts out the middleman to deliver premium quality at half the cost of similar brands. They've really become a go to across the board. You guys know how I love linen and how I've talked about it on previous episodes. I picked up some linen pants and they feel incredible. The quality is definitely noticeable compared to other brands. Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to quint.comdsh for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. They're also available in Canada too.

[B]

Side note, I'm really excited for the Coinbase credit card.

[A]

Oh, yes.

[B]

5% cash back.

[A]

Yes. Up to 4%.

[B]

4%.

[A]

Yes, up to 4% for your spend. And you know, you can earn Bitcoin. And again, it's another area of like, we're kind of again, rebuilding the financial system layer by layer. We're removing the intermediaries or bringing crypto and blockchain infrastructure to the user and giving them access to kind of like these new financial primitives.

[B]

Yeah. I'm so excited because I want to DCA into crypto all the time. And this is just like an excuse.

[A]

Exactly. And it's like you're not disrupting your normal habits.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like, you have a credit card. It's AMEX credit card.

[B]

So I love amex too. That's my favorite one.

[A]

Mine too. So you're still like enjoying all of those benefits, but you have this incentive to kind of earn, you know, like I mentioned, up to 4% in Bitcoin.

[B]

I just had, you know Michael Turpin.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I had him on the show. And after that episode, I was like, babe, we're buying a lot more bitcoin. I mean, he was saying, you know, not financial advice, of course, but like he was saying bitcoin could hit $1 million a coin.

[A]

Yes, yes, there, there, there are a lot of thoughts in that area, but I think it's just an exciting time. And, you know, as we kind of see more mainstream adoption both from retail users as well as institutions, I think it's a great time to kind of build within the crypto sector.

[B]

Yeah, I'm really excited, man. I held throughout this whole bear market. It was, I'm not going to lie, I bet I rode Ethereum all the way down to like 800.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I bought at 4.

[A]

Yeah. So it was really, what is it trading now like 4645.

[B]

46. Yeah, but it was a long three years, man.

[A]

Yeah, I bet. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And I could see why people like if you really need the money, you could lose money in crypto.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can, I can, I can see the case for, for those circumstances where again not financial advice, but I think there's something inherent in like the belief system of again we're creating a new economy that is open to and it's permissionless for anyone to participate in. I think that's the aspect that I'm most excited about for sure. And like I said focusing more on like the utility of crypto and where it can go from here.

[B]

Last topic. Which startups are you most excited about working with right now?

[A]

Yeah, so a plethora of startups. I guess I'll focus more on like you know, what we're seeing like you know, the crypto AI sector. So when it comes to like kind of democratizing access to compute data and models, one company that we invested into called Vana Network where essentially they allow any user to upload their private data to be able to train models and receive incentives as like that model is used. Right. And so if you believe that the value of that model or the agent that's kind of trained on your data will grow over time, then a user has some type of incentive. Other companies like Open Gradient, which essentially creates a kind of open access model hub, so they have access to thousands of open source models that become composable. You can verify the outputs from there. I would say. You know a topic that I discuss at the roundtable today is really like stablecoin powered agentic commerce infrastructure. So equipping agents with self custody, wallets and identities and programmable money in the form of like stablecoins like usdc. So payment and Skyfire are great examples of that. And then I don't know if you've, if you've checked this out, but you should definitely download the, our new base app. So inside of the base app you can actually transact with AI agents. You can have a conversation with the AI agents to one either order pizza, you know, again using stable coins or buy tokens and create like your, your DCA strategy. And so we invest in a couple of those agents, Elsa and Giza being, being two of them. And so really excited to kind of see like AI kind of coming more into the on chain economy.

[B]

That is cool.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Magnetic powered commerce. What does that look like?

[A]

Say that again.

[B]

Agnetic powered commerce agency.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, agency commerce. So agencic commerce is essentially like it's a new form of commerce where it becomes more proactive. Right. So today commerce like digital commerce, e commerce, et cetera requires high intent by the user.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You're searching for products, you're going to a certain location, you're clicking buy. Now we're kind of moving into the world where agents can transact on your behalf. So agents can anticipate your needs. Right. You can create certain workflows, you can say, hey, I'm going out to this AI for after party tonight and need something to wear. Can you order me something? Right. And like the agent is then, you know, finding you know, clothing based on your preferences and your unique profile and completing that end to end transaction. And so it's really like transforming like commerce Rails using a combination of AI agents and in our belief is that stablecoins become the native payment mechanism for those AI agents to transact.

[B]

That is so cool because I got a long flight tonight so I was actually looking on AI. What should I order for the plane and stuff. Exactly. And if they could just order that for me, that'd be awesome.

[A]

Yeah, My, my wife and I recently celebrated like our eight year anniversary and we went out to France and I remember going to like an LLM and just had it create my entire itinerary, gave it recommendations, gave it context about the type of food that I eat and it literally came back with a fully planned itinerary. I think I could have taken that one step further and had it like make all of the reservations for me. I think that would be a next step. But no, it's really cool to kind of see what you can do kind of using generative AI and some of these emerging tools.

[B]

Please send me that script because my eight year anniversary is tomorrow.

[A]

Oh, congratulations.

[B]

Yeah, we're going to be in New York City for it, so.

[A]

Oh, so you got married in 2017 as well then?

[B]

What we got in. So we're getting married this year.

[A]

Oh nice.

[B]

Eight years since we started dating. My.

[A]

Nice, nice. There you go. There you go. Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's amazing.

[B]

Yeah. So dude, this has been awesome. Where can people. Is the credit card application link still up?

[A]

The credit card application will be coming soon, so later, later this year. But yes, you can go to the link and apply and again that will be shipping later this year but people can follow us on Twitter. So Jonathan King VC or you can follow Coinbase Ventures DVentures. You can check out some of our latest news and insights on our Coinbase blog as well.

[B]

Perfect. Thanks for your time, man. Thank you. Y. Check them out, guys. See you next time.

[C]

I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm.

[B]

Thank you.