Could 100 Billion AI Agents Mint Their Own Tokens? Animoca's Yat Siu Explains

At Korea Blockchain Week, CoinDesk's Jennifer Sanasie and Eleanor Terrett sit down with Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, to explore a near-future scenario in which 50 to 100 billion AI agents operate on-chain. Siu sketches out why these agents, unable to hold traditional bank accounts, would need to transact natively on blockchain rails, and how the built-in limitations of stablecoins could push them toward entirely new token classes. The conversation opens with a look at how Asia's retail market differs from the West's institutional-driven "suits" approach, before turning to agentic AI as the next major retail trend. Siu also breaks down why the roughly 800 million crypto owners worldwide aren't truly on-chain in a meaningful sense, and what that gap means for the next wave of adoption. The episode is structured in chapters, starting with Asia's retail market versus the West, moving into agentic AI as the next retail trend, and examining the reality behind crypto ownership numbers. Throughout, Siu connects the rise of autonomous agents to the token models that may be required to support them.