Infrastructure Intelligence: Crypto, Data, and AI Agents
Instructions to Enter Venue:
The stairs entrance is outside of the building, right at the middle of the ferry building.
Walk up the wide stairs to the 2nd Floor, turn left to head to Shack15 to check in.
Follow signs to get to the venue
An evening with Theory Ventures × Allium on the future of decentralized systems, AI-native infra, and stablecoin rails.
Session 1: Bleeding edge AI Agents Research
Stephen McAleer (Model Alignment, OpenAI)
Spencer Farrar (Partner, Theory Ventures)
Session 2: Building new payment rails with Stablecoins and AI Agents
Griffin Dunaif (CEO, Halliday)
Spencer Farrar (Partner, Theory Ventures)
Session 3: Applications of AI with Blockchain data
Ethan Chan (CEO, Allium)
Tomasz Tunguz (GP, Theory Ventures)
Hosted by Theory Ventures and Allium
Three technologies that have existed separately are finally starting to work together in practical ways. Here's what that looks like:
AI agents can now handle money. Imagine an AI that manages your DeFi portfolio, automatically rebalancing based on market conditions and paying gas fees from its own wallet. Or a customer service bot that can actually process refunds and payments, not just escalate to humans.
Blockchains are getting smarter. Instead of requiring users to manually bridge assets or hunt for the best yield, AI can analyze on-chain data in real-time to route transactions optimally and predict market movements before they happen.
Payments are becoming programmable. A freelancer's AI agent could automatically invoice clients, convert payments to stablecoins, and invest surplus cash—all without human oversight. Or supply chain systems where IoT sensors trigger instant payments when goods are delivered.
But here's the catch: when AI agents control real money, model alignment becomes critical. If an AI managing your portfolio decides to "optimize" by taking excessive risks or misunderstanding your goals, that's not just a chat mistake—it's your actual savings. This is why having OpenAI's model alignment research directly inform how we build financial AI systems isn't academic theory, it's practical necessity.
And the infrastructure needs to be bulletproof. Halliday is building the payment rails that let these AI agents actually transact on-chain seamlessly—solving the UX nightmare of wallets, gas fees, and cross-chain complexity that currently makes autonomous AI payments nearly impossible.
But even perfect payments and alignment mean nothing if the AI is making decisions on bad data. Allium ensures AI systems have clean, reliable blockchain data to work with. When an AI agent decides to rebalance your portfolio based on on-chain liquidity patterns, or routes a payment based on gas price predictions, it needs data that's accurate, complete, and processed in real-time. Garbage data means garbage decisions, especially when those decisions involve real money.
The common thread? Systems that can think, transact, and coordinate safely without constant human babysitting. This isn't science fiction—early versions are shipping today, and getting the fundamentals right matters enormously.
Theory Ventures invests in companies building this infrastructure. Allium processes the blockchain data that makes these smart decisions possible. Together, we're backing the teams turning these concepts into products.