Intern Narratives - Part 1

Key Insights

• Twelve crypto-native interns from elite schools across the country cover their most exciting upcoming narratives for 2024. The first of this two-part report covers AI, gaming, and stablecoin adoption.
• AI x Crypto (Data Layer): The growing demand for high-quality AI training data has led to the emergence of crypto networks that incentivize data generation, although the field is still in its infancy.
• Decentralized Gaming: Onchain gaming is regaining momentum with a significant increase in TVL, but the sector faces skepticism due to past failures in incentive models. The success of new models hinges on balancing rewards and user engagement.
• Stablecoin Adoption: Latin America's adoption of stablecoins, especially USDT, is driven by high inflation and unstable local currencies, with Argentina and Venezuela leading the charge as citizens seek to protect their savings against hyperinflation.

Messari hired twelve intern analysts from elite schools over the summer. They worked with different research teams – Protocol Services, Diligence, and Enterprise. While their time with Messari didn't "retire them from a 100x trade", they did (hopefully) gain a broad understanding of our research process.

For their time with the Enterprise team, they were asked to cover six narratives in teams of two in the style of our own Narrative Games. These are the narratives they believe are most compelling for the next 3-6 months based on the potential for hype, financial gain, and technology adoption. The framework for comparing different narratives is based on the following criteria: