Dan Ives, an experienced Wall Street analyst known for being one of the ultimate signals of major technology transitions over the last 25 years, believes that cryptocurrency is moving into a "new age" as it merges with AI.

In an interview with investor Anthony Pompliano, the analyst argued that blockchain applications are still " massively underappreciated."

Ives cited Worldcoin, a project co-founded by Sam Altman, as an example of how crypto infrastructure could serve as a foundation for AI.

Ives, who just became chairman of Eightco, a company investing in Worldcoin, said the project has already amassed 16 million users and is targeting 100 million within the next year.

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"Human proof is going to become more and more important," he said, calling Worldcoin's human authentication a potential standard for the future of AI.

On Bitcoin, Ives says:

"One, there's Bitcoin in terms of just, you know, the actual value. But then there are the use cases that are starting to play out across tech, and I think that's why this is a new age for crypto to a new age for AI. And also, there's a convergence, like, you know, in terms of my latest venture that I've done with eco, because I think there's an intersection right now of AI."

Ties to Bitcoin and MicroStrategy

Aside from authentication, Ives reaffirmed his support for Bitcoin as a core digital asset, citing his recent visit to Washington with crypto advocates Michael Saylor and Tom Lee to advocate for a US strategic Bitcoin reserve.

He linked Bitcoin's role to the broader investment thesis of companies such as MicroStrategy (now Strategy), which has established itself as a proxy for institutional adoption through aggressive Bitcoin purchases.

"It's no different than what Saylor did with Strategy," Ives noted, describing cryptocurrency as a once-ignored sector that is now becoming essential to institutional portfolios.

CoreWeave and the Infrastructure Boom

Although Nvidia stays at the forefront of Ives' AI thesis, he noted that infrastructure-related companies, including CloudWeave, which specializes in providing cloud services to GPU-intensive workloads, are coming up as anonymous winners.

With increased demand for data centers, Ives said that utilities, grid operators, and AI infrastructure would see expansive growth. "There's more data centers being built today than active data centers," he said, describing Bitcoin mining solutions CoreWeave as part of the "second and third derivatives" of the AI trade.