Institutional investors are increasingly looking beyond crypto’s current market weakness and positioning for a decade-long transformation of financial infrastructure.

Institutions Think Long Term

In a panel moderated by Scott Melker on Aug. 6, executives from Pantera Capital, Digital Currency Group and Ava Labs argued that tokenization and artificial intelligence could drive the industry’s next phase.

Pantera President Scott Lowen said the disconnect between weak retail sentiment and continued institutional adoption reflects vastly different investment horizons.

"Markets tend to price things over short horizons," Lowen said, pointing to six-to-12-month expectations around growth and macroeconomic conditions.

“Institutions are thinking in 10-year increments,” he added.

Lowen said institutional involvement in digital assets has “fundamentally shifted” regardless of short-term cryptocurrency prices.

Digital Currency Group Chief Strategy Officer Simon Coer echoed the view, pointing to institutions entering crypto both as investors and acquirers of blockchain companies.

He argued that the institutional adoption crypto investors anticipated several years ago is now beginning to materialize.

Tokenization Moves Mainstream

Lowen said Pantera’s original thesis was that blockchain technology would eventually transform the “global financial plumbing.”

After years of innovation and education, he believes digital assets have entered a “legitimization phase,” marked by greater involvement from established financial institutions.

The long-term argument is that blockchain can make transferring ownership and value cheaper, faster and more efficient while eventually operating behind financial products without consumers necessarily realizing they are using crypto technology.

Coer said that shift could be particularly significant in emerging markets such as Nigeria, South Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia.

There, tokenization isn’t simply about improving existing financial products, he argued. It could give consumers access to investments and financial services that were previously unavailable or prohibitively expensive.

AI Meets Blockchain Rails

The panel also highlighted artificial intelligence as a potentially significant catalyst for blockchain adoption, particularly as autonomous AI agents begin conducting financial transactions.

Lowen described AI as powering a new era of intelligence while blockchain powers “value and ownership on the internet.”

The combination, he said, appears like a “marriage made in heaven,” although real-world use cases have yet to emerge at significant scale.

Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer said Ava Labs has been working on “coin-operated agents,” combining AI with blockchain validators. Under that model, users could give financial instructions in natural language and allow AI-enabled systems to execute them on-chain.

Gün Sirer pointed to existing Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX) applications involving ticketing and digitized property deeds, arguing that tokenized assets could eventually become usable as collateral and connect investors globally with opportunities outside their domestic financial systems.

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