{"id":72493,"date":"2026-05-14T05:40:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T05:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/experts-say-zk-proofs-give-depins-an-edge-as-ai-trust-demands-rise\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T05:40:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T05:40:06","slug":"experts-say-zk-proofs-give-depins-an-edge-as-ai-trust-demands-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/experts-say-zk-proofs-give-depins-an-edge-as-ai-trust-demands-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts Say Zk Proofs Give DePINs an Edge as AI Trust Demands Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News )<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"@container mb-[25px] rounded-sm overflow-clip py-0.5 pr-0.5 pl-2.5 bg-success-100\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col gap-m overflow-clip rounded-[6px] !bg-success-10 p-3 @[420px]:p-m\">\n<h2 class=\"m-0 flex items-center gap-s text-[19px] !text-[#1c1c1c] md:text-[20px]\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"16\" height=\"10\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 10\" fill=\"none\" class=\"shrink-0 text-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M1 1.5h14\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><path d=\"M1 8.5h10\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><\/svg><span>Key Takeaways<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"m-0 flex list-none flex-col gap-m pl-0\">\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Goldman Sachs cites a $7.6 trillion spend by 2031, depending on whether chips last more than 3 years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">StealthEX and Cysic experts warn that DePIN latency limits decentralized AI to batch jobs over live chat.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Onchain firms like Maple may bridge the $5M to $50M credit gap for Tier 2 data centers by 2028.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>The $7.6 Trillion Baseline<\/h2>\n<p>A recent Goldman Sachs <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goldmansachs.com\/insights\/articles\/tracking-trillions-the-assumptions-shaping-scale-of-the-ai-build-out\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report<\/a> shifts the debate from whether artificial intelligence (AI) demand exists to which supply-side factors will determine the actual cost of the build-out. The report projects $7.6 trillion in <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/doctor-doom-predicts-ai-powered-boom-of-world-economy\/\">AI capital expenditure<\/a> as a baseline but emphasizes that this figure is highly sensitive to \u201cswing variables,\u201d including the useful life of AI silicon.<\/p>\n<p>This longevity is seen as the most critical factor because rapid innovation could make standard chips\u2014which typically last four to six years\u2014obsolete in three years, causing costs to skyrocket. Conversely, a \u201ctiered model\u201d where older chips are reused for simpler tasks, such as inference, could stabilize costs.<\/p>\n<p>Data center complexity and the elasticity of compute demand are other variables likely to affect how much capital is expended on AI infrastructure in the next five years. Shortages in power grid capacity, specialized labor, and electrical equipment are also seen as factors elongating the build-out.<\/p>\n<p>A separate <a href=\"https:\/\/milkroad.com\/news\/where-crypto-fits-in-ai-s-7-6t-tab\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report<\/a>, meanwhile, frames this staggering infrastructure expenditure as the cornerstone of an emerging \u201cmachine economy.\u201d In this paradigm, AI agents become the primary economic actors, executing high-frequency transactions and managing resource allocation independently. The report\u2019s authors contend that legacy financial systems, characterized by slow settlement cycles and rigid know your customer (KYC) frameworks, are fundamentally ill-equipped for the velocity of agentic commerce.<\/p>\n<h2>Decentralized Infrastructure and the Latency Trade-off<\/h2>\n<p>Consequently, it positions <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bitcoin.com\/get-started\/a-quick-introduction-to-crypto\/\" class=\"lar_link lar_link_outgoing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">crypto<\/a> and decentralized protocols as the essential, permissionless \u201ceconomic rails\u201d required to facilitate this shift. However, skeptics remain wary, questioning whether decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) can truly mitigate AI\u2019s ballooning capital requirements.<\/p>\n<p>Vadim Taszycki, head of growth at StealthEX, notes that while <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/spatial-computing-expert-ai-didnt-contribute-to-metaverses-decline\/\">decentralized networks<\/a> can offer significant cost savings, they face physical limitations. While a decentralized provider like Akash might rent an H100 GPU for $1.48 an hour compared to $12.30 on Amazon Web Services, the trade-off is speed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe big cloud providers can do [fast work] because their GPUs sit next to each other in one building, connected by special cables that move data in microseconds,\u201d Taszycki said. He explained that decentralized networks, which stitch together GPUs across different countries via the public internet, add milliseconds of delay. This latency makes decentralized orchestration competitive for batch jobs and fine-tuning but unsuitable for serving high-scale, live chatbots where user experience depends on near-instant responses.<\/p>\n<p>Leo Fan, founder of Cysic, echoed these sentiments, insisting that decentralized inference is unsuitable for low-latency workloads. Fan argued, however, that latency is the wrong benchmark for comparing decentralized platforms and hyperscalers like AWS.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe hard problem isn\u2019t distributed compute but discovery, scheduling, and attestation. The wedge isn\u2019t price-per-token; it\u2019s verifiability,\u201d Fan said. He noted that trusted execution environments (TEEs) and zero-knowledge (ZK) attestations allow decentralized networks to compete in sectors where trust and verification matter more than \u201ctail latency.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Onchain Credit and the Funding Gap<\/h2>\n<p>Beyond compute, the focus is shifting to how these capital-intensive projects are funded. While traditional private credit has ample capital, it often overlooks smaller or non-standard deals. Onchain credit offers distinct advantages, such as allowing retail investors to participate in data center revenue that was previously restricted to institutional limited partners. Furthermore, platforms like Maple and Centrifuge can syndicate loans in the $5 million to $50 million range\u2014a bracket often ignored by firms like Apollo due to high underwriting costs relative to fees.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, onchain credit enables novel \u201cpay-per-inference\u201d models, where revenue fluctuates with GPU usage. Such models fit more naturally into tokenized revenue-share structures than rigid 20-year traditional leases.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this potential, experts identify four \u201cgates\u201d that remain closed to institutional adoption: legal enforceability in bankruptcy courts, the lack of tamper-evident <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bitcoin.com\/get-started\/what-is-an-oracle\/\" class=\"lar_link lar_link_outgoing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">oracle<\/a> infrastructure for servicing covenants, regulatory uncertainty for billion-dollar tranches, and unstandardized tax and accounting products.<\/p>\n<p>The consensus suggests a realistic timeline of 12 to 24 months for mid-sized syndicated deals to gain traction onchain, with majority-onchain mezzanine debt likely three to five years away. The first breakthroughs will likely come from Tier 2 operators rather than industry leaders like Coreweave.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/experts-say-zk-proofs-give-depins-an-edge-as-ai-trust-demands-rise\/\">Source link <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News ) Key Takeaways Goldman Sachs cites a $7.6 trillion spend by 2031, depending on whether chips last more than 3 years. StealthEX and Cysic experts warn that DePIN latency limits decentralized AI to batch jobs over live chat. Onchain firms like Maple may bridge the $5M to $50M credit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":72494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72493"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}