The Web3 + AI Daily #43
BTC mining companies pivoting to AI, funding towards AI-powered GameFI, and a deep dive into Bittensor.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to all newly-joined subscribers!
This is The Web3 + AI Daily, your definitive guide to the world of Decentralized AI (DeAI/dAI)! A new wave of BTC miners is pivoting to AI, securing billion-dollar deals with behemoths like Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The deflationary nature of bitcoin is a contributing factor in this shift - will the same happen to the dAI project Bittensor, which is also gearing up to cut its token issuance to make it scarcer and more valuable? Only time will tell.
Thank you for being here! Let’s dive in.
What’s Hot in Web3 + AI?
IREN Enters $15B AI Deals with Microsoft, Dell
As my last newsletter detailed, there’s a growing trend of Bitcoin mining companies pivoting to AI, seduced by the immense demand for AI compute, larger profit margins, and lower volatility. With the fierce AI race continuing to unfold, it seems like we’ll be seeing a lot more on this front in the coming months and years.
The BTC miner IREN just signed a $9.7B multi-year cloud-services deal with Microsoft, enabling to access advanced NVIDIA GB300 GPUs at IREN’s facilities. As part of the arrangement, Microsoft will make a 20% prepayment toward the contract.
IREN also revealed a separate $5.8B deal with Dell Technologies to purchase the required hardware (GPUs and ancillary equipment).
Cipher Mining Secures $5.5B AI Deal with Amazon
Cipher Digital also announced a data-center hosting deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS), valued at $5.5B.
In Q3, Cipher also reported a significantly narrowed net loss (~$3M) and an improved adjusted earnings figure (~$41M) compared to the prior quarter.
Web3 + AI Investment News
MoonClash Closes Strategic Round to Build AI-Powered GameFi
MoonClash has officially closed its strategic funding round at a $100M valuation. The round was backed by Candaq Fintech Group, Becker Ventures, Oasis Labs, BlockPulse Digital Asset Management, and others.
The game developed on BNB Chain aims to combine tower-defense strategy gameplay with NFTs, DeFi mechanics, and AI-driven systems.
Web3 + AI Readings & Conversations
A Bittensor Story
The decentralized AI-network Bittensor / Opentensor Foundation is preparing for its first halving event of $TAO reward issuance, scheduled for around December 10, 2025. Those of you following the newsletter are well aware that the anticipation has been feeding both a bullish community sentiment and a growing institutional interest in the project.
So, today, I’ve collected a nice bunch of resources for those of you eager to learn more. Take a look at this article by The Defiant to learn more about the halving and its possible repercussions. Here’s what I mean by that: Bittensor’s tokenomics mirror those of Bitcoin - only 21 million units of $TAO will ever exist, with a strict issuance schedule in place and a halving once every four years to guarantee predictability, scarcity, and appreciation.
However, while halvings historically reduce token issuance and can create scarcity, they also reduce rewards for network contributors, which could disincentivize participation and impact network activity. In the case of Bitcoin, its deflation achieved through halvings is among the main reasons why mining companies are currently switching to AI operations.
Check out also this deep dive to grasp Bittensor’s technological innovation. Unlike centralized AI platforms, the network leverages a hybrid consensus mechanism combining Proof of Stake with model-quality validation, enabling a marketplace of AI model creation and deployment. It uses a “subnet” and governance structure (via “Dynamic TAO” or dTAO) that allows community participants to influence resource allocation and network growth.
The article argues that just as NVIDIA built the underlying hardware and ecosystem that powered AI breakthroughs, Bittensor could become a foundational layer for decentralized AI by providing the network, incentives, and infrastructure where model creators, validators, and users collaborate.
Finally, I recommend you watching “The Incentive Layer”, a documentary breaking down the importance of decentralization in an era when AI is expected to impact every single aspect of our lives.
Its main message: the future of AI is not something happening TO us, it’s not locked in. Rather, it’s being designed, coded, and incentivized as we speak, and we get to decide what kind of system we want to live in.
When AI professionals hear about crypto, they immediately imagine some sort of scam. However, here the crypto element signifies mainly the permissionless nature of the system, its openness, accessibility, and free competition. I hope the film would persuade you in all the advantages a decentralized network could bring.
The film is made possible by the Opentensor Foundation, taostats, Latent Holdings, Yuma, and others. It features builders, investors, researchers, and enthusiasts alike, including Barry Silbert, Cameron Fairchild, Evan Malanga, Gyles Foster, Joseph Jacks, Jacob Robert Steeves, Marcus Graichen, Mark Jeffrey, Contango Digital Assets‘ Mike Grantis, Parshant Utam, Unsupervised Capital‘s Sami Kassab, William Blears, and more.
I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes from the movie to further awaken your curiosity. Describing why we should care about democratizing the access to intelligence, Sami Kassab commented:
Giving that AI is going to be one of the most important technologies of the century, do we really want what happened in social media to also happen here? The obvious answer is “no.”
On the other hand, Stillcore Capital‘s Mark Jeffrey offered a solid justification for the existence of open-source and permissionless systems:
Why do open permissionless projects win? Because you can’t fight the whole world. If you make something permissionless, that’s where the path of least resistance is, so that’s where the most people are going to go, that’s where the free market is going to exist, that’s where the competition is going to exist for the best ideas and the best products. The other things, too closed and too controlled, are going to wither and die.
Thank you for reading! I hope you found this article insightful.
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