With AI Agents Now Trading Crypto, What Does Their Future Look Like? - Ep. 758

In this episode, Shaw Walters, founder of Eliza Labs, takes us through his journey of launching ai16z, a decentralized AI-driven investment DAO, and the explosive growth of the Eliza open-source framework.
Shaw explains how AI agents are evolving beyond "reply bots" to serve as powerful tools for financial autonomy, community investment, and user empowerment. He shares the challenges of building trust between humans and AI, the possibilities of agents trading across multiple blockchains, and his vision of a world where financial freedom drives human progress.
Show highlights:

Why Shaw decided to launch ai16z

What he believes AI agents are useful for

What the Eliza framework is and the role it plays being an open-source project

Whether AI agents can be good at trading

Why the Eliza framework works on every chain, even though there’s a focus on Solana

How and why the AI version of Marc Andreessen was launched

Whether ai16z will launch its own layer 1 and the details on the future launchpad

How agents on social media could be really useful instead of being “reply bots”

What Shaw thinks overall of the AI space and how it’ll impact human society

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Polkadot

Kelp DAO

Guest

Shaw Walters, Founder of Eliza Labs
Links

Unchained:

The Backstory of How 3 AI Agents Led to the Rise of the Hottest Memecoin, GOAT

AI Meme Tokens Like FARTCOIN Dominate Crypto Markets, Suggesting Powerful 2025 Trend

The Block: AI agent platform ai16z considers tokenomics overhaul and launching Layer 1 blockchain

Chain of Thought: Ai16z: The Bazaar of Agents

Cygaar: How the Eliza Framework works

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

03:01 Shaw’s inspiration for launching ai16z

08:45 How AI agents are evolving beyond simple tasks

10:28 The Eliza framework and its open-source impact

13:22 Can AI agents excel at trading?

21:19 Why Eliza works seamlessly across multiple blockchains

24:08 The story behind launching Marc Andreessen as an AI character

35:18 Plans for ai16z’s layer 1 and its future launchpad

40:23 Transforming AI agents into more than just “reply bots”

43:26 Shaw’s vision for AI’s role in shaping human society

49:26 Crypto News Recap

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