VeChain CEO Sunny Lu says blockchain’s next major adoption cycle may be driven less by speculative crypto markets and more by artificial intelligence agents that need identity, payments, verification and control systems. Speaking on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction show on May 26, Lu argued that enterprise blockchain adoption remains slower than many builders expected, but that AI could create a new demand layer for decentralized infrastructure.
Sunny Lu Sees Blockchain as AI’s Trust Layer
Lu framed blockchain as a necessary trust layer for AI agents, especially if autonomous software begins representing companies, individuals and services across digital markets. He said AI’s advance is creating demand for systems that can verify who an agent is, what it is authorized to do, and how it should interact with other agents or platforms.
“In my view, AI does need a blockchain,” Lu said. “Or if we think about AI going to start the fourth industrial revolution without blockchain, it cannot be done like that.” He later described four areas where blockchain could support AI agents: decentralized identity, payments, verification and smart contract-based control.
Lu said the need becomes clearer in an agent-driven economy where AI systems operate continuously across borders and platforms. “When agents are working 7 by 24 with the other agents, they also need to simply answer two questions. Who am I? What do I do?” he said. “And what is the best answer across multiple different platforms of large language models? And the blockchain is a perfect answer.”
The VeChain CEO connected that thesis to his 2030 adoption view, arguing that blockchain may become a background technology rather than a visible consumer product. “I think blockchain will acting as like a wingman of AI agents to build the new agent economy,” Lu said. “Even blockchain could be still like, like I’m usually saying, blockchain will be invisible, but people using blockchain every day, even without knowing that.”
🎙️ Sunny (@sunshinelu24), founder of VeChain, is bullish on the merge of AI agents and blockchain technology.
“Blockchain will act as wingmen of AI agents to build the new agent economy….blockchain will be invisible.”#CHAINREACTION pic.twitter.com/4XEWsuK1Oy
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) May 27, 2026
Enterprise Adoption Slows as AI Demand Builds
Lu also said enterprise blockchain adoption has not moved as quickly as expected, citing macroeconomic uncertainty, geopolitical tension, inflation concerns, weak crypto market sentiment, unclear non-financial regulation and a shortage of must-have use cases. He said many enterprises still view blockchain through the lens of speculative crypto activity rather than operational utility.
“The progress is not as fast as we expected because it’s quite normal,” Lu said. “There are lots of different type of impacts, not only on the technology side, the crypto market sentiment, but also generally the global economic situation.” He added that companies facing uncertainty often “slow down a little bit about the innovation” before committing to new technology.
Lu was critical of crypto’s recent focus on short-term speculation, saying the industry still lacks enough applications that enterprises must rely on for transparency, efficiency or lower trust costs. “So even it’s a very, I call it like the darkest hour right now for the crypto. But I can see, I can see the main change,” he said. “More and more people start to talk about, you know, where’s the fundamentals? Where’s the utilities?”
For VeChain, Lu said the strategy remains organized around enterprise adoption, sustainability-focused user activity through V-betterDAO, and a new focus on the AI agent economy. He said V-betterDAO has grown to more than 5 million users, approaching 6 million, with more than 45 million accumulated actions from global users. He described the common thread across these areas as verification: enterprise activity, individual actions and, next, AI agent behavior.
Lu’s view places blockchain less as a standalone enterprise pitch and more as supporting infrastructure for AI-driven markets. His 2030 prediction is that users may not think about blockchain directly, but that AI agents will depend on it as a trusted “wingman” for identity, payments, credibility and coordination.
AI Transparency Note: This article was prepared with the assistance of an AI system based on the sources listed and was reviewed, edited, and approved by a human editor before publication. All quotes, data points, and factual claims are intended to be grounded in the cited source material; however, errors cannot be ruled out entirely.