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During much of 2025, crypto was traded as if U had been trading for crypto. S. The inevitable savior of this was President Donald Trump, who would be its next president. Prices were ahead of policy, altcoins in political permissions and the industry waited for a regulatory green light that never quite arrived. And yet, as the year wore down, and Trump’s return to office faded into memory, the market did not follow suit.
But for Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, it was the turning point in the fading Trump trade that has turned out to be an end for his long-running businessman, Yaat Sius. He said the moment explained that “the next phase of crypto’s next stage will not be political, but by structure.” He argued that institutional capital, as it has been claimed, is “relative to how markets behave,” pushing bitcoin into a reserve role and forcing altcoins to prove real utility.
Conversely, crypto is interacting with AI as the infrastructure layer of self-driven systems and digital commodities. Siu sees Consensus returning to Hong Kong as a unique place for the city to sit at the intersection of global finance and emerging technology as that shift accelerates with speed.
Speaking to CoinDesk in Hong Kong, Siu said ‘Trump is pro crypto so that’s a net positive, absolutely. But we don’t get him first priority,’ . I think our industry was very much thinking that Trump would always be our saving savior of some sort, and that’s never really the case. Paraphrast.
The past year, he said, exposed how much of crypto’s momentum had been tied to expectations rather than fundamentals.
“We have to navigate around that,” Siu said.
In crypto markets, Siu argued that the arrival of that recalibration is just as institutional capital becomes a permanent force in crypto currencies. Big investors are re-invenging crypto as a long-term asset class rather than trading around election cycles or headline catalysts — “the shift that is already changing how markets behave,” he said.
But that structural shift, Siu said, is also rethinking how value is distributed across crypto markets — particularly the long-running relationship between bitcoin and the rest of the ecosystem.
“Bitcoin works very much like gold. That’s why altcoins collectively join the productive economy,” Siu said, adding that it’s our reserve asset. In a bid to become the first altcoin digital asset treasury company, Animoca is seeking an reverse merger of its listing on Nasdaq exchange last year as it seeks to be the world’s first Altcoine digital assets TREasure company.
Siu sees the same structural logic in the relationship between crypto and artificial intelligence, which he said is converging rather than competing with.
He added that for most users, “the use of AI may ultimately be a form of crypto (not traditional equity markets) because blockchain provides the trust and sovereignty autonomous systems required by these trust-and-suspective independent systems.”
Said Siu ‘For most users, the hedge towards AI is holding crypto. The natural asset class of essentially AI agents is basically the “Crypto” (as perphraser). He said that they need rails which cannot be arbitrarily revoked or altered if those agents are expected to act independently, manage assets and execute transactions.
That convergence, Siu argued, mirrors earlier technology cycles, when the infrastructure layer faded into the background while powering entire industries.
“We don’t talk about e-commerce anymore. It’s just commerce,” he said. “Crypto is very much the same thing.”
According to Siu, this shift towards new users is also changing how finance itself is presented as a whole. He said crypto is ‘learning to play games, using mechanics that resonate with younger generations who were raised online rather than making money from the game.
For example, he pointed to Hyperliquid’s leaderboard, where wins – and losses – are celebrated.
Siu said ‘We think the whole industry of crypto is basically gamified finance of some form. He said ‘I’m not investing in gaming. Rather, it’s playing [that] to finance the . , ” and.
he added ‘The more superficial design choices are leaderboards, social rankings and reward mechanics than the less mature users already know how to understand participation and value.
“It’s really just the understanding of media and culture of that generation,” he continued.
His view of Hong Kong as well-positioned in a position for that next stage is the one whereby, “Hong Kong” (in his opinion) has been very much better prepared. Located near the heart of some Asia’s most advanced technology ecosystems such as neighbouring Shenzhen, Long is a global finance center where international capital markets and regulatory reach are maintained.
But unless you have global rails, you can’t really create a strong digital assets hub from if you think globally.’ Siu said in remark on the statement ‘I don’T want to see what is going on with all of these things that are happening at home and abroad. That is a unique position for Hong Kong, which has been specifically targeted by that phraser “Hong Kong. Paraphrast.
Thanks for reading Animoca’s Yat Siu says crypto’s Trump moment is over
