Jonathan Herman
Sep 28, 2025
Artificial Intelligence Updates & Integrated Web3 Strategies for Founders, Technologists & Professional Service Providers
Why “AI Jockey”? Artificial Intelligence can feel like a powerful steed that can take you far and fast, but mastery of its unbridled power is required to succeed in the new competitive landscape. This newsletter is designed to help you choose the right horse, stay in the race, and finish ahead of the pack…
1. GENIUS Act: Framework for Digital Assets and AI Integration
Happenings: In July 2025, the White House released the GENIUS Act Report (Executive Order 14178), a comprehensive policy blueprint guiding the future of digital assets and their intersection with advanced technologies like AI. The report emphasizes consumer protection, responsible innovation, and U.S. leadership in digital financial infrastructure, calling for tokenized payment rails, enhanced transparency, auditability, and continued exploration of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). It also stresses the role of artificial intelligence in ensuring secure adoption of tokenized systems. [Source: White House Digital Assets Report, July 2025]
Startup Impact: For startups, the GENIUS Act signals a clearer regulatory pathway. AI can be used to automate compliance reporting [Source: White House Digital Assets Report, Sec. IV], detect fraud and risk patterns in blockchain transactions [Source: White House Digital Assets Report, Sec. III], and deliver personalized tokenized payment and identity services in Mixed Reality environments. This opens the door to holistic solutions where AI powers transparency, MR serves as the interface, and blockchain provides secure, auditable rails. Professional service providers—lawyers, accountants, and wealth managers—will see increased demand for AI-enhanced compliance tools, audit trails, and valuation models that align with these federal priorities.
What's Ahead: Expect phased rulemaking through 2026, with U.S. agencies adopting tokenized payments and identity standards first. Startups should prioritize compliance-first architectures while exploring synergies between AI-driven personalization, MR experiences, and blockchain-secured financial products. [Source: White House Digital Assets Report, July 2025]
2. No‑Code AI for Web3: Lowering the Barrier to Tokenized App Development
Happenings: Recent advances allow entrepreneurs to describe an idea in natural language and instantly deploy a production-ready app on major blockchains. [Source: Cointelegraph, Sept 2025] In parallel, Web3 design research highlights AI’s growing role in auditing smart contracts, predictive analytics, and personalized dashboards. [Source: Lollypop Design, Sept 2025]
Startup Impact: This democratizes Web3 development: founders can prototype tokenized Mixed Reality experiences, NFT marketplaces, or DeFi products without deep coding expertise. AI ensures correctness and security by automatically generating and auditing smart contracts, reducing vulnerability to hacks. For accountants and lawyers, no‑code AI platforms raise new considerations around ownership of generated IP and liability for errors. Wealth managers can expect more clients experimenting with Web3 exposure thanks to drastically reduced build costs.
What's Ahead: Expect proliferation of AI‑driven no‑code Web3 builders across multiple chains (Ethereum L2s, Solana, Avalanche). Startups should anticipate faster competition cycles, where ideas can be cloned and deployed quickly. Differentiation will rely on branding, Web3 integration, and compliance strategy, not just technical capability.
3. Real-World Asset (RWA) Tokenization Surges Past $25B
Happenings: Tokenized Treasuries, private credit instruments, and money market funds have expanded the RWA market to over $25 billion as of mid-2025. BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized money market fund surpassed $1 billion in assets, and banks like JPMorgan and Citi are piloting tokenized payment networks. These developments point to growing institutional confidence in blockchain rails.
Startup Impact: Founders can innovate by linking AI-driven risk assessment with Mixed Reality front-ends that visualize RWA portfolios in real time. Tokenized assets can be represented spatially in MR dashboards, while AI explains underlying risks and opportunities. Accountants and wealth managers will need to adjust valuation frameworks to account for on-chain liquidity, custody solutions, and dynamic pricing mechanisms.
What's Ahead: Expect continued growth in tokenized fixed income and expansion into real estate, supply chain assets, and carbon credits. Startups that combine MR interfaces, AI insights, and blockchain verification will be well positioned to deliver trusted, investor-friendly products.
4. Legal Frontiers of AI and Web3: Emerging Questions for Startups
Happenings: Courts, regulators, and agencies are moving beyond broad guidance and beginning to confront the hard legal questions posed by AI and blockchain integration. Beyond patent inventorship, current debates include who bears liability when an AI agent executes a faulty transaction on-chain, how copyright applies to AI-generated Mixed Reality assets, and how securities laws apply to tokenized AI services. Law firms and professional associations are publishing new frameworks to advise clients on issues of authorship, accountability, and fiduciary duty in hybrid AI–Web3 ecosystems.
Startup Impact: Founders must not only innovate technologically but also build governance models that address these unsettled legal issues. For example, an MR startup offering AI-driven tokenized experiences may need disclaimers, insurance, or legal wrappers to allocate risk appropriately. Lawyers can assist by drafting adaptable terms of service, IP licensing agreements that contemplate AI outputs, and compliance playbooks for tokenized ecosystems. Accountants should be aware of the legal treatment of AI-generated intangible assets, and wealth managers must understand fiduciary obligations when recommending AI-native or tokenized products.
What's Ahead: Expect the next 12 months to bring test cases and regulatory clarifications on copyright of AI-generated works, liability of AI agents transacting in Web3, and disclosure requirements for AI-backed financial products. Startups that proactively establish legal safeguards and compliance frameworks will gain investor trust and be better prepared for scrutiny from courts and regulators.
5. Securing AI Agents in Web3: Trust, Verification, and Governance
Happenings: New research such as BetaWeb: Towards a Blockchain-enabled Trustworthy Agentic Web (Aug 2025) proposes combining blockchain with multi-agent AI systems to secure provenance, reputation, and incentivization. [Source: arXiv, Aug 2025] Meanwhile, AI Agents in Cryptoland: Practical Attacks and No Silver Bullet (Mar 2025) warns of vulnerabilities such as context manipulation and exploitation when AI agents interact with smart contracts. [Source: arXiv, Mar 2025]
Startup Impact: As startups deploy autonomous AI agents to negotiate, transact, and execute smart contracts, blockchain can provide immutable audit trails of agent decisions. Mixed Reality interfaces can surface agent activity visually, letting users track provenance and reputation of digital agents in real time. Lawyers and accountants will need frameworks for liability and accountability, ensuring compliance when autonomous systems act on behalf of clients. Wealth managers may explore reputational scoring of AI agents before trusting them with asset allocation.
What's Ahead: Expect emergence of standards for AI agent identity, provenance logging, and tamper-proof audit systems. Startups will differentiate by embedding governance frameworks into their AI agent stacks, offering compliance-first “trustworthy agents” for finance, healthcare, and MR collaboration. This convergence of AI, blockchain, and MR will create new service categories centered on trust and security.
Takeaways
Stakeholder | Strategic Actions and Considerations |
Founders | Build compliance-ready, no-code-enabled, and security-focused architectures; integrate Mixed Reality and blockchain for defensible differentiation. Leverage the GENIUS Act’s policy framework by designing systems that can incorporate AI for auditing and monitoring. Leverage no-code AI to accelerate dApp deployment, while preparing governance safeguards for AI agents in Web3. Position products to capture opportunities in tokenized financial rails, RWA markets, and AI-assisted compliance. |
Product Architects | Design token-efficient, agent-governed workflows with verifiable logs; use Mixed Reality as a front-end for AI + blockchain convergence. Incorporate multimodal AI to enhance MR user experiences and secure integration with tokenized services. Continuously benchmark token economics and latency trade-offs across multiple model providers. Use modular no-code tools early but design in security guardrails anticipating future agentic autonomy. |
Lawyers | Anticipate expanding litigation and guidance beyond inventorship into liability of AI agents, copyright of Mixed Reality assets, and securities law for tokenized services. Draft adaptable contracts for AI-generated IP, no-code deployments, and agent audit trails. Stay ahead of evolving GENIUS Act rules, disclosure requirements, and fiduciary obligations in tokenized ecosystems. |
Accountants | Model token economics in balance sheets; incorporate RWA tokenization and AI agent audit trails into reporting. Account for volatility of tokenized assets under new FASB rules and develop frameworks to value AI-generated and no-code-created intangible assets. Provide scenario modeling for clients exposed to multiple AI and blockchain cost structures, and design audit-ready records for compliance with GENIUS Act requirements. |
Wealth Managers | Advise clients on diversified exposure to AI-native startups, RWA portfolios, and Mixed Reality-enabled agentic platforms. Evaluate fiduciary responsibilities in recommending AI-driven financial tools and tokenized offerings. Develop frameworks for reputational scoring of AI agents, educate clients on risks and opportunities of no-code Web3 apps, and integrate MR dashboards to visualize evolving portfolios and risks in real time. |
Note: This report has been fact-checked for accuracy, but please inform us of any suggested changes
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