Crypto funding for AI projects hits record $516 million in 2025

Funding for crypto projects focused on artificial intelligence hit a new high this year, with startups pulling in $516 million during the first eight months of 2025, according to DefiLlama data. That total is a 6% rise over all of 2024 and is the largest haul yet for this niche, the database shows.

This year, major backers such as Bitwise, Pantera, Sequoia, and Binance Labs have committed fresh capital to AI-linked crypto ventures. Juan Leon, a senior investment strategist at Bitwise, described the shift as a “megatrend,” saying it could lift global GDP by $20 trillion by 2030.

Industry players are moving. Coinbase has launched x402, a stablecoin payment protocol built to let AI agents transact online.

The funding jump comes as the buzz around generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, X’s Grok, and Midjourney grows. Tech giants NVIDIA, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are investing heavily.

Wall Street is taking note. Morgan Stanley estimates AI could lift the S&P 500’s long-term valuation by nearly 30%, equal to as much as $16 billion in extra value.

Many AI crypto projects are still struggling to succeed

However, the progress is uneven. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology report found 95% of AI pilot programs have not achieved rapid revenue gains. And OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently warned an AI bubble may be forming, saying “some investors are likely to lose a lot of money.”

Even so, investors in the overlap of blockchains and AI remain upbeat.

AI is creating “entirely new asset classes” such as datasets, fine-tuned models, and autonomous agents, said Sean Ren, a University of Southern California computer science professor and CEO of Sahara AI, told DL News.

The mix is “extremely varied,” added Maxim Legg, CEO of dataset firm Pangea. “We see projects innovating in the fields of compute, privacy, robo-advisory, training, and optimisation.”

A key target is access to computing power. Graphics processing units are scarce and held by a handful of large firms. That scarcity can slow smaller developers, a gap that blockchain projects say they can help close.

“AI is moving faster than just about anything we’ve seen, but it’s running into a brick wall: there just aren’t enough GPUs,” said Trevor Harries-Jones, director of the Render Network Foundation.

The pitch from Render and others is to tap GPUs around the world and make “them available to anyone who needs them.” As Legg put it, “The winners will be those that build useful applications, not just hype.”

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