The Hive Mind Podcast features Cedaris (head of research at Delphi), Jose (head of Delphi Labs), Jan (venture partner), and Jason (head of markets at Delphi Research), recorded March 3rd with Bitcoin at 73k.

The discussion spans market dynamics during Middle East tensions, AI investment thesis evolution from hyperscalers to infrastructure plays, and the emergence of crypto-AI tokens like Venice's dual-token model.

Key themes include the transition from passive to active management, AI's displacement of traditional jobs, and how tokenization makes the world 'legible for computers' as described in the 2025 Ribbit Report on Tokenization.

The conversation explores defense spending acceleration in Europe, energy bottlenecks in AI buildout, and debates around Citrini's bear case for AI-driven unemployment versus historical technology adoption patterns.

Bitcoin Resilience During Equity Selloff and War Premium

Bitcoin reached 73k during recording while equities dropped 1.5-2%, marking the first time in months crypto held strong during bad equity performance rather than selling off 5-7%

Asian markets took major hits with Korea down 10% and Chinese markets destroyed, but US markets showed resilience despite ongoing Iran conflict following Saturday strikes

"If we get a VIX blowout, like an actual one, I'd probably just shove most of the cash I have into risk assets because the general backdrop still is relatively strong" - Cedaris

Trump's commitment to patrolling the Strait of Hormuz and minimizing disruption helped reduce tail risk scenarios, supporting market stability

Venice AI Token Surge and Dual-Token Economics

Venice DM token surged from $100 to $680, representing $1 of daily compute with a 4-month payback period at $120, creating natural pricing ceiling

The dual-token model uses VVV for staking to mint DM tokens, with dynamic mint rates based on DM supply targeting specific quantities

OpenClaw founder removed Venice as the default option but kept it listed, citing neutrality despite his known dislike of crypto projects

Privacy narrative drove initial excitement though competing builders questioned actual privacy implementation, with debate remaining unresolved

Jose's Pivot from Hyperscalers to AI Infrastructure

"I used Copilot the other day, and it's shockingly terrible" - Jose, explaining his shift away from hyperscaler exposure despite their compute dominance

Hyperscalers failed to execute at model/application layer and face margin compression as model companies will eventually vertically integrate compute like Grok with SpaceX

Energy bottleneck thesis drives investments in Siemens Energy, Bloom, and gas turbine companies with massive waitlists for scaling energy without grid dependence

Portfolio construction targets three trends: AGI development, multipolar world transition, and currency debasement, with 5-year compute buildout timeline

Near Protocol's AI Pivot and Illia's Credibility

Illia Polosukhin's credibility as co-author of Attention Is All You Need transformers paper makes him "the most credible crypto AI founder in the space" despite Near's multiple pivots

Near Intents now processes all Zcash volume and other privacy trading, proving their ability to ship products quickly and adapt to market needs

"They continue just to get shots on goal" with products like IronClaw (OpenClaw with trusted execution environments) representing another AI infrastructure play

Near achieved slight deflationary status by burning portion of Intents revenue while maintaining network security emissions, creating sustainable business model

Tokenization Making World Legible for Computers

The 2025 Ribbit Report on Tokenization elegantly defined tokenization as 'making the world legible for computers,' applying to both LLM word tokens and crypto tokenization

Crypto tokenization makes capital legible to computers: meme coins make culture tradable, governance tokens make power over systems tradable and enforceable

"AI wants to be truly sovereign, like it just makes a lot of sense - you can deploy a smart contract without needing an API key or interacting with centralized services" - Jose

Solo founder era creates perfect opportunity for crypto capital formation platforms like Metadao, as these founders aren't venture-backable but can achieve 10-100 million ARR

AI Job Displacement and Citrini Bear Case Debate

India's $300 billion IT outsourcing sector (8% of economy) faces potential decimation, with Leopold Aschenbrenner shorting Infosys as concrete bear case play

Goldman Sachs reportedly not hiring junior analysts this year, telling partners to 'figure it out' as AI eliminates entry-level positions across sectors

"The majority of the argument is whether you believe it will be like every other technology where it's a complement to labor or do you think these jobs are gone for good" - Jose

Citrini's bear case triggered market reaction and rebuttals from Citadel and The Economist despite upfront disclaimers about low probability and illustrative purposes

European Defense Spending and Active Management Renaissance

Europe committed 800 billion euros by 2030 for rearmament, with European defense index up 2x since Germany's announcement in March/April 2024

"This is like the active manager era" with long-short strategies positioned for resurgence as stock dispersion increases despite indices near all-time highs

Private defense companies showing inflecting revenue with Ukraine drone startups representing obvious up-only defense sector usage growth

International markets outperforming for 18 months with Lindy effect as longer outperformance drives more allocation, boosted by dollar weakness expectations