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According to Catherine Daly, the marketing head at Space and Time, framing artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain as competing industries would be a mistake. Instead, Daly believes “there’s a lot of room for each to accelerate the other.” To illustrate this point, she identified onchain transacting AI agents as one example demonstrating why artificial intelligence should not be seen as a threat to the blockchain industry.
Integrating AI With Blockchain: A Powerful Pair
In her written responses to Bitcoin.com News, Daly claimed that in the next couple of years, certain tasks—such as travel bookings or online payments—will likely be carried out by AI agents. However, for AI agents to successfully perform these tasks in real time, “a logic for how they’re allowed to spend money” must be input into a smart contract. The Space and Time marketing head expressed confidence that the blockchain will find a great product-market fit as the place where agents transact.
Regarding claims that zero-knowledge (ZK) protocols or the technology will likely be used outside the blockchain space in the future, Daly agreed and said this is especially true for industries dealing with financial value. Daly said she envisions banks utilizing ZK to prove the integrity of their ledgers to other institutions. Additionally, enterprises training large language models (LLMs) can also benefit from ZK by verifying training data without revealing sensitive information.
Addressing concerns that interest in ZK might wane as it has with other blockchain-based innovations, Daly firmly states that the technology “is undoubtedly here to stay.” She argues that ZK represents the most elegant solution for trustlessly scaling the mainnet and overcoming the computational limitations of smart contracts hence interest in it will not fizzle out.
Below are Daly’s answers to the questions sent.
Bitcoin.com News (BCN): The surge in Zero-Knowledge (ZK) protocols is said to be narrowing the divide between Web2 and Web3, while also bolstering data availability within privacy-focused ecosystems. How would you assess the tech industry’s recent progress in establishing a trustless, privacy-centric, and verifiable data ecosystem through the adoption of ZK protocols?
Catherine Daly (CD): ZK is the future of verifiable computation. We’ve seen several applications of ZK in the blockchain space, with ZK protocols created for Ethereum rollups, privacy, coprocessing, and more, and these will continue to accelerate. However, I also think we’re going to start to see more ZK applications outside of the blockchain space. Verifiability is critical at many points of the enterprise stack, particularly in industries dealing with financial value. We’ll see banks, for example, using ZK to prove the integrity of their ledgers to other institutions. We’ll see enterprises that are training their own LLMs using ZK to verify training data. At Space and Time, we believe verifiable data processing is one of the most fundamental use cases for ZK both in Web3 and in Web2, and that’s what we’ve delivered with Proof of SQL.
BCN: There is a growing belief that artificial intelligence (AI) would improve blockchain applications. This improvement can range from simple tasks like creating landing pages for crypto companies to enabling faster and cheaper transactions in decentralized protocols. In line with this, your platform recently released a high-speed zero-knowledge prover, proof of SQL, under an open software license. Can you elaborate on this solution from Space and Time, explaining how blockchain applications can benefit from it?
CD: Proof of SQL is the only ZK prover that can process data at scale in the time that’s needed for smart contracts to operate. There are several ZK coprocessors in the space that are focused on generalized, arbitrary compute, and that’s necessary too, but typically these protocols are really inefficient for data processing. If you’re sending data to a smart contract, which it needs in order to execute a transaction, you can’t wait 30 minutes for that proof to be generated. You need it in real time. Proof of SQL can deliver this sub-second for large datasets, and within Ethereum blockchain for much more massive datasets. We optimized our protocol for data processing specifically to fill this gap in the space.
BCN: ZK solutions have become a popular trend in recent months. Considering how several trends in the blockchain sector fizzled out after initial heightened popularity, are you confident that ZK technology is here to stay? If yes, what are the reasons?
CD: ZK is undoubtedly here to stay. It’s the most elegant solution for trustlessly scaling mainnet, the answer to the limited computational abilities of smart contracts, and it’s opening new doors for verifiable computation across all industries.
BCN: As the project’s Head of Marketing, could you provide more insight on the other benefits that your platform is offering blockchain developers and how they can explore the protocol’s data warehouse in creating intuitive decentralized applications (dapps) for their use cases?
CD: Verifiable data processing is essential not just for AI, but for smart contacts as well. In order to usher in the vision of Web3—a world where financial value is underpinned by verifiability, not by trust—smart contracts need access to data in a trustless way. Space and Time allow smart contracts to access data on their own chain, other chains, and even offchain sources in a ZK-proven way. For example, a DeFi protocol can look up a user’s collateral on its Sui deployment to issue a loan on Ethereum. A Web3 game can aggregate a user’s offchain gameplay metrics to mint a reward onchain. We’re powering the next generation of>
BCN: Matter Labs ignited controversy recently when it filed trademark applications for the term “zero-knowledge proofs” and related phrases. The company ultimately backed down, but the episode raised questions about how Web3 operates. What are your thoughts on the matter?
CD: Web3 is all about community. I think the best thing a core team can do is listen to community feedback, and I have a lot of respect for teams that do that, especially when it means changing course on something.
BCN: In the past year or so, we have seen regulators go after developers behind some of the groundbreaking privacy solutions. Unfortunately, this could impact the development of privacy-enhancing solutions. What do you think the community needs to do to ensure that the governments do not eventually take a harsh stance against privacy solutions or the developers working on them?
CD: Educating the broader public on the benefits of blockchain technology goes a long way in the general perception of the tech we’re all building. It’s important for protocols to remain compliant, focus on true decentralization, and for the community to hold bad actors accountable wherever possible.
BCN: Unlike blockchain technology, which has been the target of climate activists, AI — which seemingly uses more computing power—has been warmly received. This has the potential to encourage players in the crypto-mining sector to switch to AI-related services. In your view, is the warm embrace of AI a good thing for players in the blockchain industry? Does this shift to AI threaten the future of cryptocurrencies like the bitcoin (BTC)?
CD: I think it’s a mistake to pit blockchain and AI against each other as competing industries, as there’s a lot of room for each to accelerate the other. For example, one clear use case we see for AI x blockchain emerging in the next few years is AI agents transacting on-chain. Within the next couple of years, each of us will likely have our own AI agent assistant, which handles tasks like booking travel, purchasing goods and services online, or managing basic finances. These agents will need some way to transact automatically and in real-time. You can’t just hand them your credit card or bank account information, but you can write the logic for how they’re allowed to spend money into a smart contract. I think blockchain will find a great product-market fit as the place where agents transact.
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