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Yat Siu
Yat Siu
Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, Animoca Brands
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Will AI Agents Launch Their Own Tokens?

📅 Oct 20, 2026 CoinDesk 8 MIN 24 VIEWS 30 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
Jennifer Sanasie and Eleanor Terrett sit down with Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu at Korea Blockchain Week. Siu sketches a near future of 50 to 100 billion agents that can't hold bank accounts and so transact natively on-chain, and why stablecoins' built-in limits push agents toward new token classes. - Chapters/Timecodes: 00:00 Asia's Retail Market vs. the West's Suits 01:18 The Next Retail Trend: Agentic AI 01:46 Why 800M Crypto Owners Aren't Really On-Chain 02:11 More Agents Than Humans — and Agentic Payments 03:03 RWAs, the Stradivarius and Pokémon Cards 03:54 Ar...

What Yat Siu said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Yat Siu discussed the energy at KBW and the difference between Asian and US crypto markets, noting Asia remains retail-focused while the US is turning institutional. He highlighted Animoca's bet on AI with Hello Minds, arguing crypto wallets are difficult for consumers and that AI agents will be the on-ramp for the 800 million people who own crypto but hold it on centralized exchanges. Siu estimated individuals will have 5-10 agents each, leading to 50-100 billion agents that need blockchain for native transactions. He addressed the token economy, agreeing with a prior conversation that agents will have tokens, predicting a 'gazillion' tokens with varying values, and that agents will create their own tokens, spawn sub-agents, and even self-replicate. He also connected AI agents to the metaverse, saying we were wrong to think humans would inhabit it; agents are metaversal beings that can manage calendars, fitness, and groceries.

Key takeaways

  1. Siu predicts 50-100 billion AI agents will exist in 3-5 years, exceeding human population and requiring blockchain for transactions.
  2. Animoca is betting on AI with its Hello Minds product, which launches agents designed to handle calendars, fitness, and groceries.
  3. Most crypto holders in Asia and elsewhere use centralized exchanges; they need agents to facilitate on-chain activity.

Numbers and commitments

FigureWhat it refers toTypeAt
800 million People who own crypto in the world metric 1:38
5 to 10 Number of agents an individual will have in 3-5 years metric 2:44
50 to 100 billion Projected number of AI agents interacting with humans metric 2:44
20 Estimate of agents a person will have in five years, given by Siu metric 2:35

Chapters

  1. 0:00Energy at KBW and market split
  2. 0:38Retail vs institutional focus in Asia and US
  3. 1:38AI agents as on-chain entry point
  4. 2:44Projecting 50-100 billion agents
  5. 4:23Blockchain readiness for agents
  6. 5:41Agents and token creation
  7. 7:53Metaverse and Hello Minds launch

Questions asked in this interview

5
  1. 1:27What is the next trend that you see bringing retail investors sort of back to the table? Any interest?
  2. 2:24How many agents total, or will we be interacting with?
  3. 2:32How many years? Did you say five?
  4. 2:36But how many do you have?
  5. 5:22How many tokens are we realistically talking about?
Yat Siu 0:02 ↗
Thank you for having me.
Host 0:03 ↗
Thanks for being here. You were just telling us about the energy here at KBW. We haven't had a chance to walk the floor yet. So, tell us a little bit about it. Take us into what's going on beyond the stage.
Yat Siu 0:13 ↗
I mean, it's pretty wild. There's a lot of stuff happening here. Every time you feel down in crypto, which the last couple months has been a little bit choppy, just come to a conference like KBW or Token, which is up and coming, fill up on some energy and then go back into the wild. Basically, that's how I think of it. Yeah.
Host 0:25 ↗
It's like a, you know, shot of energy and a shot of a little boost. Yeah. Exactly. Interesting, right? Because we talk about the US market a lot, you know, on my show, CoinDesk, and then we come to Asia and it really is sort of has a different feel.
Yat Siu 0:38 ↗
There's a very big difference here because Asia is much more retail focused. Yeah.
And you know, one thing I have noticed when I've been in the US, it's a lot more suits are coming, right? So you have a lot more people in ties and so, which is not a bad thing, but it just shows that it's going much more institutional, much more RWAs, and our business is kind of doing something similar in that direction. However, here in this market, you have a pretty strong and healthy retail market still. You have people who are excited about it and people who want to be in the space from a retail perspective, which frankly I think in the West that's kind of died down a little bit, which I think is the opportunity because they still can come in. However, you know, back in, if you remember '22, actually '21 and '22, particularly in the beginning, NFTs were really the thing that drove consumer adoption and got the attention of people who were not just there for a quick buck, as it were. And that's changed, obviously. Yeah.
But over here, the energy is still there. So I think that's pretty exciting.
Host 1:27 ↗
What is the, just to follow up on that, NFT craze obviously did bring a lot of retail interest in the United States. What is the next trend that you see bringing retail investors sort of back to the table? Any interest?
Yat Siu 1:38 ↗
I mean, we're putting a big bet on AI with Hello Minds, our own product, but also in general. The whole point here is that, you know, we think it's very difficult for the regular consumer to basically use, you know, a crypto wallet. And just to be clear, we have something like 800 million people that basically own crypto in the world. So it's not exactly niche in that sense, right? And particularly in places like Korea, it's like every person under the age of 30 probably owns crypto in one form or the other, but they all hold it in centralized exchanges, right? They don't actually use it on chain. And in order to make this world sort of the way we want it to be, it has to be on chain. Decentralization, all that kind of stuff has to happen. And really, it's difficult to do with the technology. But an AI agent is okay with that, right? And, you know, if I were to ask you the question, how many agents do you think you'll have probably in the next three to five years? What do you think?
Host 2:24 ↗
How many agents total, or will we be interacting with?
Yat Siu 2:27 ↗
Just you yourself that you'll be using for your own life, maybe for your calendar, your scheduling, your, you know, whatever you do.
Host 2:32 ↗
How many years? Did you say five?
Yat Siu 2:33 ↗
Five years.
Host 2:34 ↗
Five years.
Yat Siu 2:34 ↗
Yeah.

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Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX
APA

Siu, Y. (2026, October 20). Will AI Agents Launch Their Own Tokens? [Interview transcript]. CoinDesk. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3097821/

MLA

Yat Siu. "Will AI Agents Launch Their Own Tokens?." CoinDesk, 20 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3097821/.

BibTeX 
@misc{siu2026_3097821,
  author       = {Yat Siu},
  title        = {Will AI Agents Launch Their Own Tokens?},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, CoinDesk. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {oct},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3097821/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}