Tokenization is becoming the financing layer for AI and robotics, Framework bets with $400 million fund

The biggest investment opportunities in blockchain may no longer be in crypto itself, but in how the technology can finance capital-intensive industries such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and energy.

That's the thesis behind Framework Ventures' new $400 million fund, announced Friday. The crypto-focused venture firm says tokenization and stablecoins are evolving from crypto-native products into financial infrastructure for sectors that need new ways to raise capital.

"The industry has moved in the direction of bringing these technologies — tokenization, blockchain itself, decentralized networks — to other markets that can utilize the technology in a new and novel way," co-founder Michael Anderson told CoinDesk in an interview.

The industry looks fundamentally different from the 2020-21 cycle, when much of crypto revolved around DeFi protocols, DAOs and products built primarily for crypto users.

"There was this time in 2020 and 2021 where we were building crypto products to serve crypto users," Anderson said.

Today, founders are increasingly using blockchain to solve financing problems outside crypto.

One example is AI infrastructure. Framework believes tokenization could unlock cheaper financing for GPUs and other computing hardware by turning those assets into blockchain-based collateral.

Traditional securitization markets struggle to package individual servers or computing equipment into investable products, Anderson said. Stablecoins — with more than $300 billion circulating onchain — create a new source of capital for asset-backed lending.

"We have the capital onchain to finance this industry," he said.

The same thinking extends to energy. Framework has invested in Daylight , which finances residential solar projects through a distributed energy network, and Uranium Digital, which is building a tokenized marketplace for physical uranium.

There's also a notable shift in the profile of founders building today's crypto companies, Anderson said.

Rather than anonymous crypto-native developers launching speculative protocols, Anderson said, many founders now come from traditional finance, energy or industrial technology, bringing deep expertise while using blockchain as the underlying financial infrastructure to solve real-world problems.

Framework's recent investments already reflect that trend. They include TVL Capital, founded by former members of Morgan Stanley's digital assets team; robotics startup Mecka AI, which supplies training data to frontier AI companies; and Plasma, a blockchain-based banking platform built around stablecoin payments.

The venture firm's strategy mirrors a broader shift across the digital asset industry. Global banks and asset managers are increasingly using blockchain rails to issue, trade and settle traditional financial assets, while stablecoins are becoming part of cross-border payments and treasury operations as banks and fintechs look to modernize payment rails.

"What if 2021 was the aberration," Anderson said, "and we're now moving toward fundamental utility, fundamental business models and leveraging this technology in ways that aren't primarily speculative?"

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