After more than two years, The Web3 + AI Newsletter is migrating from Ghost to Paragraph. This move was motivated by my desire to enjoy Web3 perks like decentralized storage, NFT gating, content monetization, and more meaningful interactions with my audience. You're probably receiving this email because you subscribed at web3plusai.xyz.
Here you'll find daily bulletins covering the latest Web3 + AI news, along with deeper inquiries into important trends, narratives, and innovations. Happy reading!
As my Friday newsletter detailed, there's a growing trend of Bitcoin mining companies pivoting to AI, seduced by the immense demand for AI compute, larger profit margins, and lower volatility. With the fierce AI race continuing to unfold, it seems like we'll be seeing a lot more on this front in the coming months and years.
The BTC miner IREN just signed a $9.7B multi-year cloud-services deal with Microsoft, enabling to access advanced NVIDIA GB300 GPUs at IREN’s facilities. As part of the arrangement, Microsoft will make a 20% prepayment toward the contract.
IREN also revealed a separate $5.8B deal with Dell Technologies to purchase the required hardware (GPUs and ancillary equipment).
The deals mark a clear pivot by IREN from pure BTC mining toward becoming a major AI infrastructure provider, leveraging its data-center and power-capacity assets.
Microsoft has struck a deal with data-center operator IREN that includes access to Nvidia's advanced chips, aiming to ease the computing crunch that has kept the tech giant from fully cashing in on the artificial intelligence boom.
Cipher Mining also announced a data-center hosting deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS), valued at $5.5B.
The 15-year lease agreement with Amazon Web Services, valued at $5.5 billion, requires Cipher to provide turnkey space and power for AI workloads in two phases, starting in July and August next year, the Bitcoin miner announced on Monday.
In Q3, Cipher also reported a significantly narrowed net loss (~$3M) and an improved adjusted earnings figure (~$41M) compared to the prior quarter.
Cipher Mining announces $5.5 billion AI hosting deal with AWS. Mining firm Cipher Mining has announced a $5.5 billion lease agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to support AI computing. This morning, $CIFR released its Q3'25 business update, marking a transformative quarter highlighted by major progress in expanding our HPC strategy and pipeline.
MoonClash has officially closed its strategic funding round at a $100M valuation. The round was backed by Candaq Fintech Group, Becker Ventures, Oasis Labs, BlockPulse Digital Asset Management, and others.
The funds will go toward team expansion, deeper integration of AI for adaptive gameplay and economy balancing, and launching the MoonClash marketplace and further ecosystem build-out. The broader aim is to create a sustainable GameFi ecosystem where entertainment, player ownership and on-chain economics merge.
The game developed on BNB Chain aims to combine tower-defense strategy gameplay with NFTs, DeFi mechanics, and AI-driven systems.
MoonClash, a BNB Chain GameFi platform, closed a $100 million strategic funding round from Candaq, Becker Ventures, and others. The capital will fuel AI integration, team expansion, and market initiatives, enhancing its Web3 gaming ecosystem.
The decentralized AI-network Bittensor / Opentensor Foundation is preparing for its first halving event of $TAO reward issuance, scheduled for around December 10, 2025. Those of you following the newsletter are well aware that the anticipation has been feeding both a bullish community sentiment and a growing institutional interest in the project.
So, today, I've collected a nice bunch of resources for those of you eager to learn more. Take a look at this article by The Defiant to learn more about the halving and its possible repercussions. Here's what I mean by that: Bittensor's tokenomics mirror those of Bitcoin - only 21 million units of $TAO will ever exist, with a strict issuance schedule in place and a halving once every four years to guarantee predictability, scarcity, and appreciation.
However, while halvings historically reduce token issuance and can create scarcity, they also reduce rewards for network contributors, which could disincentivize participation and impact network activity. In the case of Bitcoin, its deflation achieved through halvings is among the main reasons why mining companies are currently switching to AI operations.
The decentralized AI network is preparing for its first halving event on December 10.
Check out also the deep dive linked below to grasp Bittensor's technological innovation. Unlike centralized AI platforms, the network leverages a hybrid consensus mechanism combining Proof of Stake with model-quality validation, enabling a marketplace of AI model creation and deployment. It uses a “subnet” and governance structure (via “Dynamic TAO” or dTAO) that allows community participants to influence resource allocation and network growth.
The article argues that just as NVIDIA built the underlying hardware and ecosystem that powered AI breakthroughs, Bittensor could become a foundational layer for decentralized AI by providing the network, incentives, and infrastructure where model creators, validators, and users collaborate.
Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin trading school. The best technical analysis, reports and news to profit from the crypto market. Guided lessons with custom examples.
Finally, I recommend you watching "The Incentive Layer", a documentary breaking down the importance of decentralization in an era when AI is expected to impact every single aspect of our lives.
Its main message: the future of AI is not something happening TO us, it's not locked in. Rather, it's being designed, coded, and incentivized as we speak, and we get to decide what kind of system we want to live in.
When AI professionals hear about crypto, they immediately imagine some sort of scam. However, here the crypto element signifies mainly the permissionless nature of the system, its openness, accessibility, and free competition. I hope the film would persuade you in all the advantages a decentralized network could bring.
The film is made possible by the Opentensor Foundation, taostats, Latent Holdings, Yuma, and others. It features builders, investors, researchers, and enthusiasts alike, including Barry Silbert, Cameron Fairchild, Evan Malanga, Gyles Foster,
I'll leave you with a couple of quotes from the movie to further awaken your curiosity. Describing why we should care about democratizing the access to intelligence, Sami Kassab commented:
Giving that AI is going to be one of the most important technologies of the century, do we really want what happened in social media to also happen here? The obvious answer is "no."
On the other hand, Stillcore Capital's Mark Jeffrey offered a solid justification for the existence of open-source and permissionless systems:
Why do open permissionless projects win? Because you can't fight the whole world. If you make something permissionless, that's where the path of least resistance is, so that's where the most people are going to go, that's where the free market is going to exist, that's where the competition is going to exist for the best ideas and the best products. The other things, too closed and too controlled, are going to wither and die.
The majority of the Web3 crowd will be heading to Buenos Aires this month for Ethereum's Devconnect event, which will offer a packed program of conferences, hackathons, and various side events. However, if you don't plan to attend and/or have free time to hack, don't hesitate to check the virtual hackathons below and bag some rewards.
OriginTrail, umanitek, and Polkadot invite you to harness the power and versatility of the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG) to create trusted AI solutions that scale human confidence in machine intelligence. See the event here.
From orchestrating swarms of AI agents, to crowdsourcing real-time web intelligence, to safeguarding creators’ rights and detecting deepfakes — the challenges are bold, urgent, and wide open for your ingenuity.
The prize pool amounts to $30K, submit until November 22nd.
Another event, hosted by Verisense Network, calls for bold ideas that harness key tools like MCPs and RAGs to push the limits of LLMs and reach the next level of intelligence. The hackathon will welcome judges from Cambrian Network, Visa Ventures, World, and others.
Thank you for reading! The next edition is coming tomorrow.
If you haven't done so yet, I invite you to subscribe to stay in the loop on the hottest dAI developments.
I'm looking forward to connecting with fellow Crypto x AI enthusiasts, so don't hesitate to reach out to me on social media.
Disclaimer: None of this should or could be considered financial advice. You should not take my words for granted, rather, do your own research (DYOR) and share your thoughts to create a fruitful discussion.
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Albena Kostova-Nikolova
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