# AI: The Gift that Never Takes

> AI Dispatch #44 recaps December: Virtuals' ACP passes $370m in agentic activity, Surf raises $15m, Trump's AI executive order, and verifiable AI via EigenCloud.

- Source: https://castlelabs.io/research/ai-the-gift-that-never-takes
- Published: 2025-12-15
- Authors: Castle Labs
- Topics: AI, Markets
- Assets: $HYPE
- Publisher: Castle Labs (https://castlelabs.io)

---

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/663b0347-af9d-4a58-b347-742751b1d53d_1600x1000.jpeg)

For one of the last weekly Dispatches of the year, we return to our old format.

While we take some time to reflect and close the year, morale seems to be fairly low in the markets, as reflected by the fact that AI as a whole is one of the losers in mindshare, as mentioned by [@KaitoAI](https://x.com/@KaitoAI).

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/3ed1edb6-9cbd-41c6-9718-18a92f4b7f97_1138x930.png)

However, we should take this occasion to reflect on how far we have come.

Especially for AI, 2025 was the year of mainstream establishment, and having practical implementations of agentic communication and commerce in production.

One of the main proponents of agentic activities has been [@virtuals\_io](https://x.com/@virtuals_io) with its ACP.

**Just a few days ago, they hit over $370m processed from AI agentic activities:**

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/4ed396ab-c47d-4295-8c66-eb18b5d54f76_1152x798.png)

This was also the week of [@solana](https://x.com/@solana) breakpoint, where [@jerallaire](https://x.com/@jerallaire) from [@circle](https://x.com/@circle) talked about their vision for AI in the next 3-5 years:

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/c206c72d-c6c1-4655-9e67-93b6ce41ba1d_1136x1462.png)

Whenever we talk about AI agents, one of the first questions that people ask is, can they make me money? Here’s an experiment on the matter by[@diego\_defai](https://x.com/@diego_defai) across [@ZyfAI\_](https://x.com/@ZyfAI_) [@SurfAI](https://x.com/@SurfAI) [@almanak](https://x.com/@almanak) [@gizatechxyz](https://x.com/@gizatechxyz) and more.

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5380d03e-48e4-4a27-8c16-bc63d32865c0_1134x814.png)

**Surely AI agents continue to be appealing to investors:**

[@SurfAI](https://x.com/@SurfAI) recently announced their $15m funding round:

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/083cb038-70f6-4a4f-8a5b-da2651b02620_1134x1008.png)

One of the aspects of AI that will be critically important on its development is regulation. Just a couple of days ago, Trump signed an executive order to ensure a national policy for AI, prohibiting states from regulating AI at the state level.

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b2a0ca1e-d150-4f5c-b327-adc8eae3762b_1136x820.png)

**Here’s a deeper dive into the reasoning behind:**

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/60ea3c42-25c8-43ea-860f-4196a025f479_1142x448.png)

The end of the year is a great time for content coming out (we will have something for you as well, coming soon).

**[@a16crypto](https://x.com/@a16crypto)'s big ideas include a few on agents and AI:**

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8a0b2cc9-5126-47e1-a98b-d38cbf7ab5eb_1134x1016.png)

**How do we make AI verifiable? And what does it mean?**

[@eigencloud](https://x.com/@eigencloud) shares their vision through a case study with [@StoryProtocol](https://x.com/@StoryProtocol):

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/af938ceb-b7f2-4f1a-bdac-f6233fbdc373_1132x1078.png)

For a deep dive into this, you should listen to [@therollupco](https://x.com/@therollupco) interview with [@sreeramkannan](https://x.com/sreeramkannan) and [@devrelius](https://x.com/devrelius):

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/9a7d10fa-6f71-4794-8bdb-19f8f5ba25d5_1134x974.png)

In other news, [@SentientAGI](https://x.com/@SentientAGI) just realised their “Semantic Embedding and Reasoning Agent” (SERA-Crypto), which appears to have outperformed most of the current LLM models such as GPT-5, Grok 4, Gemini 2.5 Pro and Perplexity.

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/6557538b-e670-4266-b893-6a9859796853_1148x1020.png)

After a period of radio silence [@Punk9277](https://x.com/@Punk9277) has released a longer post about the future of InfoFi and [@KaitoAI](https://x.com/@KaitoAI), worth a read:

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/77242f3d-a62a-4f09-87f0-68c06a19fe7e_1140x960.png)

Totally a coincidence that this post comes right after, with some light-hearted criticism on the state of AI and what we achieved so far: expectations vs reality, I guess.

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2d3eb8e7-a7de-4e09-838e-bf4f0aa52207_1136x1034.png)

JKJK... Slowly but surely, AI will penetrate more and more of our flows. Here’s [@DeFiMinty](https://x.com/@DeFiMinty) with some useful tools for research:

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8c974701-0688-439b-88e3-6fd49f325daa_1148x1258.png)

To be completely honest, at Castle, we really use AI marginally, and always as a tool rather than a means of its own.

**We follow up with some interesting insights by [@JaredKubin](https://x.com/@JaredKubin) on LLMs performance IRL vs in controlled environments:**

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/03d19d07-2059-42da-924f-af8291a1f0e5_1140x1396.png)

Now onto a different type of use of AI.

**How does [@altitude](https://x.com/@altitude) leverage AI?** We can expect more “neobanks” and similar to introduce these implementations.

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/7f6135d5-64df-4744-9e21-628d5c430ead_1136x930.png)

Also, some AI updates from the [@HyperliquidX](https://x.com/@HyperliquidX) ecosystem, with a dive into the technical challenges to implement “mirror trading” on Hyperliquid.

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f1393d47-2b85-4afe-a08e-9146a5d89af6_1154x874.png)

We end up on a funny note with [@saylor](https://x.com/@saylor) being the only one who consistently managed to turn AI slop into its own branding and still does it. Well gg! Our timeline is ruined but at least we can laugh about it.

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/71a6fe88-172b-418e-bca3-5558160b8142_1132x1348.png)

Last but not least, we end with a post from [@0xJeff](https://x.com/@0xJeff) bringing some much-needed perspective on the evolution of AI within crypto + some predictions for the future.

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d5b9507d-c892-4764-aeca-a8e84d53b9a2_994x1706.png)

* * *

## **Some Little Web2 AI Bonus News:**

-   On [@nvidia](https://x.com/@nvidia) CPU vs ASICs:
    
    ![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/822092cd-2d55-4ec0-980f-f1cac25337b7_1026x890.png)
    
-   [@cursor\_ai](https://x.com/@cursor_ai) just released a pretty handy update:
    

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/13976497-a548-4f11-ac32-7d8b4d9a2c23_1006x758.png)

-   Smart enough? Pretty good occasion to join the [@AnthropicAI](https://x.com/@AnthropicAI) fellows program.
    

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8ff3f0d0-df0a-4878-9b1d-794a1032353d_1008x794.png)

-   Another pretty sick example of AI for video, with the [@invideoOfficial](https://x.com/@invideoOfficial) AI engine able to replace actors and scenes while keeping their expressivity.
    

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/1d5ab308-d470-4435-9990-63e453c50e8f_998x920.png)

-   Here’s an interesting image on the current flows among AI companies:
    

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8ad225df-2788-480a-9ae5-bc41c2a26acd_1010x834.png)

-   The more data, the more problems - never thought we’d be sharing a post by Mario Nawfal, but here we are. Pretty crazy how Netflix’s immersive experience turned into a data harvesting operation.
    

![](https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e2dd57d3-6987-474d-98a2-faa4e57f17fd_1022x910.png)

That’s it for this week, we wish you a peaceful Monday and a great rest of the week.