The Web3 + AI Daily #52
Web3 + AI funding rounds across privacy, decentralized infra, AI for finance and trading, and InfoFi.
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)! Today, I’m listing all the December investment and public sale news you might have missed. As Messari commented in their State of AI report, the influx of funds into Web3 + AI has slowed down recently, but despite that the space shows resilience.
Thank you for being here! Let’s dive in.
Web3 + AI Investment News
Aztec Generates $61.3M From Innovative Public Sale
Aztec completed a public sale of its $AZTEC token from December 2–6, 2025, raising about $61.3M (19,476 ETH). About half of the 16,700 participants in the sale were community members, existing users, testnet operators, and legacy ecosystem participants, rather than big institutions.
The sale used a novel auction method called the Continuous Clearing Auction (CCA), built in collaboration with Uniswap, intended to provide fairer access and transparent price discovery compared to the traditional airdrops or insider-heavy launch models.
The auction began at a floor price tied to a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $350 M, a 75% discount compared to previous equity valuations. Tokens will remain locked until at least February 11, 2026, when token holders can vote on a generation event; otherwise, they unlock gradually through November 2026.
Aztec’s privacy-focused Ethereum Layer-2 network Ignition Chain, which uses zero-knowledge proofs to enable private transactions, is live, positioning the project as a major player in privacy-native blockchain infrastructure. One of Aztec’s major achievements consists in providing a viable and easy-to-use digital identity solution, vital for every digital interaction in the post-AI era.
DeepNode AI Raises $5M Across 2 Rounds to Build DeAI Infra
DeepNode AI, a start-up building a decentralized AI infrastructure, has raised $5M across two funding rounds: a $2M community-supported seed round (valuation ~$25M) and a $3M strategic round (valuation ~$75M). The strategic round was backed by Blockchain Founders Fund, Side Door Ventures, tbv, IOBC Capital, FOMO Ventures, and Nestoris.
The funds will support DeepNode’s plan to launch an “open intelligence network”, a decentralized platform where AI developers, compute-providers and validators collaborate without centralized corporate control. Contributors are meant to earn rewards for real-world utility of their AI work.
DeepNode intends to launch its mainnet by the end of the Q1 2026. The network is being built on Base Chain, aiming for low-cost scalability and enabling use in many domains, from healthcare diagnostics to finance, fraud detection, trading, and more.
TrueNorth Collects $3M to Specialize AI for Finance
The AI engine for crypto investors TrueNorth secured $3M in a pre-seed funding round to build specialized AI for finance. The round was led by CyberFund, with participation from Delphi Digital, SNZ Capital, GSR, and Ocular VC.
The company aims to create what it calls the “reasoning layer for financial intelligence,” domain-specific AI that’s trained for trading and investment tasks, avoiding the hallucinations and mistakes generic AI models make in fast-moving markets. By encoding professional traders’ workflows into structured playbooks and fusing real-time market data with proprietary models, TrueNorth hopes to deliver accurate, context-aware insights and execution-ready recommendations.
TrueNorth aims to fill the gap between AI’s theoretical promise and real-world financial performance. If successful, its “financial-grade” AI could help both professional and retail investors navigate markets with more reliability. The company’s public beta version already has tens of thousands of users on its waiting list.
ZENi Secures $1.5M to Grow the Intelligence Data Layer for AI Agents
ZENi secured $1.5M in a seed funding round, led by Waterdrip Capital and Mindfulness Capital, with additional investment from Rootz Lab, Attention Ventures, DePIN X Capital and MetaLabs Ventures.
ZENi’s platform, called the “InfoFi Data Layer”, processes over 1 million daily signals from social platforms (like X, Telegram, Discord) and blockchain (on-chain activity), converting them into structured, machine-readable intelligence. It can then be used by AI agents to understand user intent, detect emerging narratives and timing windows, generate adaptive content, trigger outreach, and optimize execution loops.
With the new funding, ZENi intends to accelerate development of its data-intelligence backbone and scale its offering. On top of the data layer, ZENi also offers “AI Sales Agents” that automate marketing and growth workflows, using the processed data to drive outreach and client acquisition, aiming to power what they call the “InfoFi Economy.”
More
Trump Omits Crypto in National Security Strategy
The newly released 2025 United States National Security Strategy (NSS) under Donald Trump makes no explicit mention of Bitcoin, blockchain, or digital-asset technologies. Instead, the strategy highlights artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, and quantum computing as the core technologies that will define U.S. technological leadership going forward.
The silence on crypto and blockchain is striking given the administration’s previous pro-crypto gestures, such as backing legislation for stablecoins, endorsing a “digital finance” agenda, and establishing a federal “strategic Bitcoin reserve.” By omitting digital assets from the NSS, the government sends a signal that crypto is viewed more as a financial or commercial tool rather than a strategic national-security asset or technological priority.
Some analysts view this as a disconnect between rhetoric and strategy: despite public support and pro-crypto policy moves, crypto isn’t elevated to the level of strategic concern. In any case, I believe it is high time we realized that under Trump, any federal support or lack thereof is purely transactional.
Thank you for reading! I hope you found this article insightful.
If you’d like to keep up with the latest developments at the burgeoning intersection of blockchain and AI, I invite you to subscribe.
And if you find value in my writing, consider supporting the newsletter. I’d greatly appreciate it.
The Web3 + AI Book Club is live on Fable. Follow the link below and come join our literary community.
I'm looking forward to connecting with fellow Crypto x AI enthusiasts, so don't hesitate to share your thoughts here or reach out on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Firefly.social.
Disclaimer: The content of this newsletter is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing contained herein should be construed as financial advice or as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any of the companies or assets mentioned.
Please don’t take my views at face value. Instead, do your own research (DYOR), think critically, and share your perspective so we can challenge ideas, learn from one another, and arrive at better conclusions through thoughtful discussion.