Dragonfly partner says VC shift to AI is not a permanent drain from crypto

Haseeb Qureshi, a partner at crypto investment fund Dragonfly Capital, has refuted concerns that capital is permanently flowing from crypto to the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. In an interview with CoinDesk, he stated that he completely disagrees with this view. Qureshi argued that comparing the explosive consumer adoption of AI with crypto's growth trajectory misunderstands the nature of both technologies. He noted that less than 1% of AI service users are paying customers, whereas crypto has no free services. He pointed out that there is no free Bitcoin or Ethereum. According to Qureshi, while venture capital is moving to AI, this is a natural market flow and not a critique of crypto, whose underlying fundamentals remain strong even as market sentiment has cooled. He further explained that stablecoins, in particular, have shown steady growth regardless of price volatility, with their supply increasing by 50% annually, which he described as exponential growth. Qureshi added that volatility, from ETF-driven rallies to tariff-induced downturns, has been a feature of the crypto industry for over a decade and is neither new nor fatal. He called the idea that people would stop using stablecoins because of a price drop "absurd."