The latest episode of The CoinRock Show kicks off with host Matthias delivering an energetic rundown of market highs—and a striking absence of hype. Bitcoin blasted past the $111,000 mark, setting a new all-time high. Ethereum, Solana, and others followed suit, painting the top 10 green. But the mood was subdued: no Lambos, no watches, no hype-fueled mania.
“This cycle is very much institutional driven,” Matthias noted.
He pointed out that despite record prices, retail investors are still largely sitting on the sidelines. He emphasized how hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and traditional finance players are now leading the charge.
“Banks, pension funds, hedge funds, investment funds, sovereign wealth funds; they’re all buying Bitcoin”
And of course, it was Bitcoin Pizza Day. A nostalgic nod to May 22, 2010, when a developer traded 10,000 BTC for two pizzas—a transaction now valued at over $1.1 billion.
“There is no way you’re holding from $41 to a billion,” Matthias laughed.
“People like to kid themselves.! Even if you hold from $41 to like $5 million, $10 million, that’s it.”
With the market heating up and institutional buy-in rising, the conversation shifted to the episode’s main guest—someone building for the future of intelligent, on-chain autonomy.
Enter David Minarsch: Builder of On-Chain Autonomy
David Minarsch, CEO and co-founder of Valory and a founding member of Olas Network, joined the show to unpack what’s really happening in the world of AI agents. A PhD in applied game theory from Cambridge, David operates at the nexus of AI, Web3, and coordination science. And if you’re wondering what that means in practice—it’s nothing short of radical.
David and his team are building AI agents that are not just powerful, but also owned. Not rented from some closed system, not borrowed via API keys, but actually operated by end users. As David explained:
“The same way you own your keys to own your coins, in AI you should own your in AI you should own the open source code and code underlying your agents.”
Their product suite—running on the Olas protocol—features autonomous agents capable of trading in prediction markets, managing DeFi portfolios, or even assisting influencers. Through apps like Pearl, users can deploy agents like Modius and Predict to create value on their behalf—even while they sleep.
What Is an AI Agent Anyway?
Matthias didn’t beat around the bush. With all the buzz around AI agents, few people can clearly define them. So he asked outright: What exactly is an agent?
David broke it down into a spectrum from augmentation to full autonomy. From Teslas that assist human drivers to Waymo cars that drive themselves. The same logic applies to AI.
“ChatGPT is augmentation,” he explained. “
But an agent that manages your crypto portfolio continuously, that’s full autonomy.”
He described modern agents as hybrid systems—not just models, but complex systems involving tools, wallets, and deterministic logic.
“Every agent today is a system,” he said.
“All agents today are hybrid architectures where you have rules-based, non-in-space systems. So you have the models call into tools, which are a set of rules, which allow it to do very deterministic things.”
What’s groundbreaking is the way Valory leverages crypto infrastructure to give these agents permissionless access to act—whether it’s placing trades, moving funds, or collaborating with other agents.
Why Agents Need Crypto
For David, crypto isn’t just a feature. It’s the foundation. Without it, the autonomous systems he envisions wouldn’t be possible.
“Giving agents a wallet that is permissionless, a crypto rails, kind of unlocks them, untethers them from like complex signup processes with banks or outright impossibilities by using those APIs”
And that autonomy has deep philosophical implications. Crypto doesn’t just allow for decentralized finance—it enables decentralized intelligence. By building agents on crypto rails, David believes we can achieve something radically empowering: ownership-based AI, where your data, logic, and value flows are truly yours.
He’s not alone in that belief. In a world rapidly centralizing around closed AI platforms, he sees open-source alternatives and crypto-based agent economies as the counterweight.
“It’s very important that we start owning things more again. Like in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, we would own everything. Like all the physical devices, you would buy them and then they’d be in your house.”
Toward a Multi-Agent Economy
One of the boldest visions shared in the episode was David’s view of a future built around multi-agent systems. Instead of chasing one all-powerful AGI, he sees a world of specialized agents—each doing a specific job—working together like an economy of digital workers.
“Think of a generalist, jack of all trades employee who does a bit of everything versus someone who can come in and do brain surgery, specialized, very specific.” he noted.
Just like human societies evolved around division of labor, he believes agent economies will evolve the same way.
These agents will communicate, trade services, coordinate tasks, and create entirely new markets—many of which may be invisible to us today. And crucially, they’ll be built with user ownership at the core.
Final Takeaway: Agency, Not Hype
While the hype around AI continues to swell, David’s focus is on practical infrastructure that empowers people. He left the listeners with a thoughtful question:
“How do we get back to this world where we have autonomy for our software and autonomy for ourselves, and where everyone can have cool humanoid robots at home, cool AI agents in the web and in the digital realm, and really be independent and therefore autonomous as an individual?”
Whether it’s user-owned AI agents or tokenized incentive systems that coordinate global contributors, his message is clear: the future isn’t about waiting for permission. It’s about taking ownership—of your money, your intelligence, and your future.
Where to Find David Minarsch
You can follow David Minarsch’s work and insights across platforms:
- X (Twitter): @david_enim
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidminarsch
- Medium: @david.minarsch
- GitHub: github.com/DavidMinarsch
David is the co-founder of Valory and a founding member of Olas Network, Olas on X, where he’s building the infrastructure for user-owned AI agents and decentralized autonomy.
