DuckChain Joins Forces with Arbitrum for the "AI-Driven Mass Adoption Unit" Event, Successfully Driving AI Empowerment in the Web3 Ecosystem

By: blockbeats|2025/02/26 06:45:03
Share
copy
Source: Duck Chain

DuckChain Joins Forces with Arbitrum for the

On February 18, 2025, DuckChain and Arbitrum successfully held the "AI-Driven Mass Adoption Unit" themed event in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. The event brought together core projects, investment institutions, developers, and ecosystem builders in the Web3 and AI fields to jointly explore the innovative path of AI empowering Web3 and driving mass adoption.

Event Highlights Review

The event was organized by DuckChain and Arbitrum, co-hosted by Owlto Finance, UXLINK, Carv, and Google Cloud, and supported by projects such as Quack AI, ApeCoin, Lumoz, Utonic, Mind Network, KuCoin Web3, Infinity Ground, Gate Web3, CloudMile, Tomo Wallet, AIME, The Banana Game, among others. The event attracted over 600 industry elites to engage in in-depth discussions on the integration of AI and Web3.

At the beginning of the event, the organizers DuckChain and Arbitrum warmly welcomed all partners and guests and thanked everyone for their continuous support for the development of the Web3 and AI ecosystems. During the keynote speeches, the guests discussed the application of AI agents in the decentralized world, how intelligent automation enhances user experience, and the impact of AI on the growth of the Web3 ecosystem.

UXLINK CEO Rolland introduced the AI Growth Agent, the first AI-powered Web3 growth tool developed by UXLINK. This tool can accurately analyze 40+ million social connections, achieve intelligent user targeting and automated airdrop marketing, and build an efficient growth loop to help projects achieve exponential expansion. Rolland emphasized that AI is fundamentally changing the growth model of Web3, making social virality more targeted, thereby helping projects quickly reach core users and accelerate ecosystem development.

CARV CBO Paul Delio focused on CARV's deployment in the AI and data sovereignty fields. He introduced that CARV SVM Chain, as the infrastructure for AI agents, can expand to Ethereum and SOLANA, and combined with the D.A.T.A. Framework, provide on-chain and off-chain data support, enabling AI agents to have the ability to learn, optimize, and collaborate. Paul believes that data sovereignty is crucial in the AI era. CARV, by building an open data infrastructure, allows AI agents to autonomously evolve in a decentralized environment, driving deep integration of AI with the Web3 ecosystem.

Google Cloud Web3 BD Manager Blues Lin discussed Google Cloud's technical support in the Web3 and AI fields, emphasizing the key role of AI in data processing, security protection, and infrastructure optimization. He pointed out that leveraging Google Cloud's powerful computing capabilities and AI tools, Web3 projects can improve operational efficiency, enhance security, and accelerate the widespread adoption of Web3. Blues Lin stated that the combination of cloud computing and AI will be a significant driving force for Web3 development, making it easier for developers to build and scale decentralized applications.

Owlto Finance Co-founder Leo Ced introduced Owlto Finance's AI-enabled strategy in the cross-chain liquidity field. He mentioned that Owlto has provided asset bridging services within 70+ blockchain ecosystems and, leveraging the Omnichain DEX aggregator, achieved seamless swaps across 20+ networks. Currently, Owlto has attracted over 2.25 million users, completed 8 million transactions, and gradually evolved into a key cross-chain liquidity hub in the Web3 space. Leo Ced believes that the integration of AI will further enhance the intelligence of cross-chain transactions, making them more efficient, secure, and driving the global development of the DeFi ecosystem.

Industry Impact and Future Outlook

This event not only facilitated in-depth discussions between Web3 and AI domains but also led to several potential collaborations. During the networking session, multiple project teams expressed preliminary cooperation intentions, involving AI-driven smart contract protocol integration, AI-enhanced interaction optimization in Web3 social networks, collaborative development of decentralized data sharing mechanisms, and innovative exploration of AI-empowered NFT ecosystem applications.

Furthermore, DuckChain showcased its Telegram AI Chain solution on-site, aimed at seamlessly onboarding billions of Telegram users into the crypto world through AI and EVM technology, accelerating the widespread adoption of Web3.

Additionally, DuckChain announced its collaboration with the ecosystem project Quack AI to further explore the novel transformation that AI governance tools can bring to DAOs. Quack AI will enable Genesis Members to utilize AI agents for personalized voting analysis, proposal interpretation, and voting optimization, thereby achieving more efficient, fairer, and more decentralized governance.

In the future, Quack AI will further expand its functionality, allowing AI agents to not only vote but also stake tokens, automate DeFi operations, and execute cross-chain governance, driving the Web3 ecosystem towards a more intelligent era.

As the trend of AI empowering Web3 becomes more apparent, DuckChain will continue to promote the practical application of AI technology in the Web3 ecosystem. In the future, we will cooperate with partners to hold more industry exchange activities, promote deep collaboration among ecosystem partners, and jointly explore new opportunities for AI-driven Web3 popularization.

Thank you to all partners, guests, and participants for their support. We look forward to gathering again at the next event!

This article is contributed content and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.

You may also like

a16z Leads $18M Seed Round for Catena Labs, Crypto Industry Bets on Stablecoin AI Payment

Traditional finance is still stuck in a "human-to-human" model, while Catena aims to achieve "AI-to-AI" interaction.

Pharos, deeply integrated with AntChain, is about to launch. How can we get involved?

What is the relationship between the $8 million funded NewChain and Ant, and how will they interact?

$COIN Joins S&P 500, but Coinbase Isn't Celebrating

On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.



On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.


Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.


In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.


Side Effects of ETFs


Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.



Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.


According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.


This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.


Chart showing the trend of net outflows for Grayscale among the 11 institutions


Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.



In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.


According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.



However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.


The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.


Robinhood Takes a Stand, Traditional Brokerages Join the Fray


On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.



With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.


In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.



Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.



Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.



User Data Breach: Is Coinbase Still Secure?


In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.


Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.


Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.


Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.


Visualization: ChatGPT, Source: Farside


In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.


Visualization: ChatGPT


Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.


CEXs are All in Self-Rescue Mode


Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.



Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.


Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.



Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.


With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.


However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.


In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.


The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.


Arthur Hayes: Why I'm Betting on ETH While the Market Is Obsessed with SOL

"I personally have also allocated 20% to gold, expecting the price of gold to potentially rise to $10,000-20,000 by the end of this market cycle."

Key Market Insights for May 16th, how much did you miss out on?

1. On-chain Flows: $111.3M inflow to Ethereum this week; $237.6M outflow from Berachain 2. Largest Price Swings: $ETHFI, $NEIRO 3. Top News: Data: Solana Network's revenue reached $7.9M on the 13th, surpassing the sum of all other L1 and L2 chains

CryptoPunks Changes Hands Twice, Did the Originator of NFTs Finally Find Its "Forever Home" This Time?

The original NFT pioneer CryptoPunks has once again officially changed ownership after being sold to the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) developer Yuga Labs.

Popular coins

Latest Crypto News

Read more