Smart Tech Revolution: How Blockchain and AI are Reshaping Investment

Financing infrastructure

New infrastructure is needed to power the next wave of AI innovation, and blockchain is providing new ways to finance it.

“What’s unfolding right now with AI in the U.S. is a full-blown industrial revolution, and it’s being backed and subsidized by the federal government like few things I’ve seen before,” Hive Digital Technologies (TSXV:HIVE,NASDAQ:HIVE) told the Investing News Network (INN) in an email.

High-performance GPUs are the backbone of AI innovation, but they are scarce and expensive. For many investors, the only way to tap into the price action of this high-demand infrastructure is through stocks.

Companies like Compute Labs tackle this by tokenizing illiquid assets like GPUs via blockchain, offering direct access and ownership of the underlying hardware. The company anticipates managing over a billion dollars in assets within the next few years, all dedicated to owning and managing compute hardware that facilitates AI and other workflows.

For AI developers, its model means access without having to give up equity or ownership in their company. For investors, it’s a new way to gain exposure to digital infrastructure without owning stock.

“We are not working with developers (the) same way that (a cloud) provider would,” Compute Labs co-founder Nikolay Filichkin told INN. “We give them the capital, or we give them the hardware they need to grow their businesses. That way, when a developer is working with a cloud service provider, they’re working with one of our partners. So you can think of us as kind of like a financier for GPUs.”

Filichkin says illiquid asset tokenization will provide investors with access to opportunities across various asset classes that are typically difficult to access.

“Our whole vision is to turn illiquid assets that are high-yielding or high-return returns to a liquid asset. And we start with GPUs, because that’s the narrative that makes sense, and it’s really lucrative, it’s really high returns,” he continued. “But beyond that, there’s also CPUs, storage, and then we can get into the more heavy infrastructure that investors would have no ability to get into. And that could be fiber optic cables, that could be solar, that could be nuclear.”

This broader vision for digital infrastructure financing extends to fundamental improvements in blockchain capabilities. Franklin Templeton-backed Bitlayer recently launched its BitVM smart contract bridge on mainnet.

This solution allows Bitcoin holders to use smart contract platforms by converting Bitcoin to Peg-BTC (YBTC) via a trust-minimized bridge. It uses Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade for better off-chain computation and privacy, and has partnered with Sui, Base, and Arbitrum.

This development expands the utility of Bitcoin, allowing it to participate more actively in the smart contract ecosystems that are vital for financing and building digital infrastructure.

Democratizing trading

The rise of zero-day-to-expiry (0DTE) options offers new income strategies, but navigating them is highly complex. To simplify access to these institutional-level yield strategies for retail investors, packaged trading products are emerging, offering robust income streams designed to perform consistently amid market uncertainty.

IncomeShares yield-focused European exchange-traded products (ETPs) allow investors to gain exposure to single stocks, indices and commodities without trading complex options themselves. Each IncomeShares product combines core holdings with an options overlay to generate yield. For example, their GLDI – Gold+ Income ETP – pairs exposure to gold with the strategy of call selling, transforming gold, which typically doesn’t pay interest, into a monthly income stream.

“We’re not targeting bond-like returns, we’re offering equity-linked income,” explained Leverage Shares CFA Oktay Kavrak in correspondence with INN. “Fixed income may offer four or five percent yields with low volatility. Our products, particularly those on volatile names like Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) or Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), often generate double-digit annualized yield, but with equity exposure.

“The goal is targeting options that are far enough from the current (spot) price to capture some upside, while still delivering meaningful income. Think of it as the middle ground between dividend stocks and growth names.”

Leverage Shares’ use of technology is crucial for managing the scale of their offerings.

“A lot of the trading in the background is done automatically based on pre-programmed rules – which means our infrastructure can manage hundreds of ETPs and dozens of weekly option rollovers without constant manual intervention,” Kavrak added. “We have 19 IncomeShares ETPs – but our entire range under “Leverage Shares” has over 160 products across various currencies and exchanges. This kind of scale is simply not possible without the role of tech.”

Optimizing digital asset management

Evolving DeFi protocols, chains and yield strategies, each with unique risks and technical needs, makes managing crypto complex. Public companies benefit from an operational framework that exceeds the boundaries of manual oversight to navigate this volatile environment and meet transparency requirements.

Machine learning helps firms make informed, real-time decisions in lending, liquidity, yield farming and cross-chain arbitrage.

Justin Kenna, CEO of GameSquare (CSE:GSQ), explained in an email to INN how the company utilizes Dialectic’s Medici AI system to strategically manage its significant Ethereum investment by continuously monitoring a wide range of DeFi risk signals in real time to dynamically reallocate exposure and identify yield opportunities while keeping capital defensible.

“The major difference between Medici and traditional active fund management is speed and granularity,” Kenna said, adding that Medici operates with continuous, automated optimization, allowing them to move with the rhythm of the market in real time while still maintaining a conservative, capital-preserving approach.

“This strategy reflects a broader shift in how smart technology is reshaping investment,” he continued. “We see this as a TradFi-meets-DeFi model, where institutional capital, public-company governance, and on-chain opportunity can align in a way that is scalable and transparent. It’s still early, but we are building fast and believe this approach will help redefine the next generation of financial infrastructure.”

AI and blockchain can also overcome traditional system inefficiencies and simplify access to private market assets, projected to exceed US$20 trillion by 2030. Anthropic partnering with financial service firms to provide AI-generated insights from market data through Claude showcases smart tech’s impact beyond DeFi, transforming traditional finance.

The institutional shift

Stablecoins are now integral to the future of banking. On recent earnings calls, JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) confirmed that they are actively exploring stablecoin infrastructure and tokenized deposit models.

JPMorgan, a leader with JPM Coin, plans to be involved in both. Citigroup is examining a Citi-branded stablecoin, while Bank of America seeks low-volume, high-friction use cases.

Meanwhile, Charles Schwab is launching spot trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum, and Cantor Fitzgerald is in talks to acquire over US$3.5 billion in Bitcoin.

These moves, alongside growing corporate crypto treasuries, signal traditional finance’s readiness for mainstream programmable finance.

The convergence era

The convergence of AI and blockchain is undeniably birthing a new investment paradigm characterized by unprecedented speed, customization and inclusivity. These cutting-edge technologies are reshaping how capital is formed, deployed and secured across the global economy.

The US Treasury’s pivot to proactive, growth-oriented financial regulation may open doors for blockchain-based asset structures, if they can demonstrate compliance and consumer safety using AI and smart contracts.

Policy shifts like the Genius Act and proposed executive orders on crypto in 401(k)s signal a deeper layer of integration is emerging and a robust institutional appetite for digital assets, despite lingering uncertainties.

Looking ahead, the landscape will be profoundly shaped by whether fintech firms succeed in lobbying against restrictive bank fees for data access, potentially accelerating the shift of capital towards decentralized finance.

Further changes are anticipated as Ethereum-based lending protocols continue to gain favor over centralized alternatives, possibly triggering a new altcoin season and driving stock rallies for companies adopting altcoin treasury strategies.