The Rollup The Truth About Crypto AI Infrastructure with Nick Emmons and Danny Sursock
Oct 11, 2025
Nick Emmons, founder of Allora Network, and Danny Sursock, partner at Archetype VC, dive deep into the real dynamics of crypto AI infrastructure. They dissect the difference between speculative assets and functional AI solutions, emphasizing objective-centric models that prioritize user goals. The duo explores the importance of tailored benchmarks for evaluating AI's effectiveness within the blockchain space. They also touch on the integration of Web2 principles with decentralized practices, and Nick shares exciting updates on Allora's upcoming mainnet launch.
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From Speculation To Real Infrastructure
- Crypto largely solved democratized exposure to AI but not infrastructure and apps.
- The next stage is building mission-critical infrastructure and on-chain intelligent applications.
Agent Toys That Only Raised Capital
- Early agent experiments focused on token-driven capital formation but failed to use that capital productively.
- Nick argues next-gen agents will both form capital and deploy it usefully, especially inside DeFi.
Objective‑Centric Model Interaction
- Objective-centric AI flips model selection by letting users state goals, not pick models.
- Decentralized market environments then surface the best model outputs against those objectives.