I sat down with Patrick from Ampli live at ConsenSys in Miami for a wide-ranging conversation that ran nearly an hour, and for good reason. Patrick went from studying political science in Germany and France to becoming a crypto tokenomics advisor, and now co-founder of Ampli, a company building the security infrastructure for AI agents that manage money. We got into why blockchain was essentially built for AI before AI even existed, how Ampli's Agent Control Room lets fund managers discover, deploy, and control agents without ever handing over the keys, and why 90% of crypto exploits last year came down to human error rather than smart contract bugs. We also talked about the future of stablecoins as geopolitical tools, why DeFi is bottoming out like the post-dotcom era before a decade-long bull run, and what a world looks like where every phone has a personal banker inside it. This is one of those conversations packed with insight for founders, fund managers, and anyone paying attention to where finance is actually heading. Disclaimer: Nothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend. Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/ Connect: https://ampli.net/ Key points with time stamps: • [00:00] Patrick introduces himself, political science background in Germany and France, discovered Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2016, drawn in by smart contracts as a governance solution • [04:00] What Ampli is building, agentic capital management infrastructure that lets AI agents autonomously transact money and digital assets securely • [08:00] Why Ampli pivoted from consumer products to infrastructure, the agent capability grew faster than the security stack beneath it • [12:00] How Ampli's separation of powers works, agents only send suggestions, policies are written on-chain, and the agent never holds the keys • [16:00] The 90% statistic, security researchers found that over 90% of exploited crypto funds last year came from human error, social engineering, and front-end spoofing, not smart contract bugs • [20:00] Why blockchain was built for AI before AI arrived, it is cumbersome for humans but perfect for machines transacting value at scale • [25:00] What comes next in the agentic space, purpose-built agents, agent marketplaces, and agents subcontracting other agents • [30:00] The Visa study showing 90% of stablecoin transactions on Ethereum in 2024 were done by bots, proof the rails are ready for machine-to-machine finance • [35:00] DeFi trends, Patrick's thesis that DeFi is bottoming out like the post-dotcom era, with tokenization and institutional adoption set to drive a decade-long secular bull run • [40:00] Companies Patrick admires, Midas for disciplined tokenization and Fortify for MPC-based self-custody • [44:00] Ampli's Agent Control Room, their first product, letting fund managers discover, deploy, benchmark, and control agents • [48:00] Crypto's real product-market fits, stablecoins, yield, gambling, capital gains, and front-loading liquidity through ICOs and TGEs • [52:00] Stablecoins as geopolitical tools, how the US chose private stablecoins over CBDCs to spread dollarization globally, and what a future AI-native monetary primitive might look like • [56:00] Advice for founders, listen to potential clients obsessively, build toward customer needs, and always push toward profitability so investors chase you
