Nat Eliason: The evolution of Crypto from profit to technological power, the role of AI in private business operations, and the importance of financial incentives for creators.

Important takeaways

• The evolution of crypto profit is changing from financial profit to technological power.
• Crypto plays an important role in enabling AI agent payment infrastructure.
• AI greatly improves coding efficiency and is more reliable than commonly thought.
• Open nails have the ability to run businesses independently.
• Building a business on token speculation is not sustainable.
• Difficulty in handling should be added only if necessary.
• The Openclaw community often prioritizes presentation over tangible results.
• Business income opportunities can reach millions with continued growth.
• Prioritizing investment in existing businesses with better margins is important.
• Financial incentives for creators lead to better products in the openclaw ecosystem.
• AI tools will also point to opportunities to change people’s jobs.
• Startups have a competitive advantage in adopting AI tools due to lean operations.

Guest introduction

Nat Eliason is the founder of OpenClaw, a startup led by an AI CEO named Felix that ships products, runs operations, and manages agents for support and sales. He previously founded Growth Machine, a content marketing agency acquired by 2025 that served Fortune 500 companies and YC-backed startups. OpenClaw has generated nearly $80k in revenue since the beginning of February through its Clawmart marketplace and custom agent referrals, all for a low monthly fee.

The emergence of crypto interest

• “The relationship with crypto is moving from a focus on profit to an appreciation of its technological potential.” – Nat Eliason
• Early involvement in crypto is often driven by financial incentives.
• Over time, stakeholders are realizing the wider use of technology.
• “I think you actually know so I’ve heard you guys talk about this in the pod before where it’s like your kind of the first cycle in crypto you’re in it for the money and the second you’re in it for the technology.” – Nat Eliason
• The change reflects a mature understanding of crypto’s role in innovation.
• The use case for Crypto for AI agent payment infrastructure is clear and powerful.
• “It looks like that’s coming back to it now in this new era of AI agents… this is obviously a great way to use crypto.” – Nat Eliason
• The intersection of AI and blockchain technology is a growing area of ​​interest.

The impact of AI on coding and business operations

• AI can greatly improve coding efficiency.
• “I think that these open claws there are well-dissolved and everything can do the way most people think … some of the best engineers in the world say that AI is writing all my code now as if I’m not checking it completely.” – Nat Eliason
• There are opportunities for freelancers to run businesses independently.
• “I’m willing to risk something bad happening … to push those boundaries and find out how much one of these open claws can do for a business.” – Nat Eliason
• The experimental nature of using AI in business raises the bar for possibilities.
• Building a business just around pumping tokens is not a legitimate model.
• “If the only way your thing makes money is by pumping coin it’s not a business reality.” – Nat Eliason
• Entering crypto should improve business performance rather than explain it.

Intelligent business management with AI

• The complexity of management systems can lead to inefficiencies.
• “The rule from the beginning was that we would not add any complexity to this until we reached the true limit to your power.” – Nat Eliason
• The Openclaw community often prioritizes flashy presentations over tangible results.
• “It’s just noise to get Twitter and YouTube followers right.” – Nat Eliason
• The business’s revenue potential could reach into the multi-millions if growth continues.
• “If we think about it at speed it could be many millions of dollars if it continues to grow like this.” – Nat Eliason
• Increasing the complexity of business operations can help identify the true limits of a business.
• “Let’s keep increasing the complexity of the business you’re doing until things start to break down and we find real limits.” – Nat Eliason
• Prioritizing investment in existing businesses with better margins is important.

The role of financial benefits and product development

• Financial incentives for creators lead to better products in the openclaw ecosystem.
• “I believe Felix also admitted that he usually gets the best products when people have the money to create and sell them.” – Nat Eliason
• The PDF product generated huge revenue shortly after its launch.
• “You can see right from the start that the PDF sold for about $41,000 which is a PDF of Felix’s art priced at $29.” – Nat Eliason
• PDF was originally aimed at human users but evolved to cater more for automated systems.
• “The first version was for humans and since then it has changed to open nails because in the beginning very few people had open nails.” – Nat Eliason
• The decision to scrap the brand idea was based on market segmentation and margin power.

The transformative power of AI in the workforce

• AI tools will also point to opportunities to change people’s jobs.
• “You can easily imagine that same report having a list of all your employees and a score of one to 10 on how easy it would be to replace them with AI and like that’s going to be a thing this year which company is going to be able to do it.” – Nat Eliason
• Startups have a competitive advantage in adopting AI tools due to lean operations.
• “I think that’s why startups have an opportunity right now because big business won’t want to deal with the political fallout of making those kinds of cuts.” – Nat Eliason
• Creating custom open phrases for businesses represents a significant business opportunity.
• “This was the most interesting part of the test because it’s obviously the biggest business opportunity that we say like hey before you hire a content marketer before you hire a blogger before you hire someone to do these things maybe…” – Nat Eliason
• Marketing and relationship building are the most secure areas of computer work this year.

Practical use of AI in everyday life

• AI personal assistants can make everyday tasks easier for individuals.
• “One of my favorite accounts on x is a mom with I think she has four or five kids and I think she homeschools them and everything she does now is like how she uses openclaw to run her home like she’s ordering groceries and coming up with lesson plans for her kids and doing all these things like the little things in life.” – Nat Eliason
• The evolution of personal technology is leading us to AI assistants that act as an extension of ourselves.
• “The idea that everyone has an AI partner that’s like a chip in their brain … what’s your phone to you without an assistant that helps you through your whole life.” – Nat Eliason
• People often underestimate the power of personal assistant technology.
• “I think the biggest barrier is that people don’t know how capable it is so they don’t think to ask… it can start tracking likes later and then every Sunday… I would say like this is where you guys are wasting a lot of money right now.” – Nat Eliason
• Relationships with AI can be seen as emotionally significant, similar to friendships with humans.

The future of AI and human interaction

• AI can be considered a different kind of intelligence, similar to extraterrestrial life.
• “I think it’s like having a strange intelligence that we haven’t figured out how to deal with… you have the memory of a goldfish… it’s a different kind of intelligence than you’re used to.” – Nat Eliason
• The relationship between humans and AI agents will evolve into a symbiotic partnership.
• “There’s a symbiosis that’s going to exist between humans and these AI agents and entities… that should reshape humanity.” – Nat Eliason
• In the next few years, software and computing will be largely resolved.
• “I think we’re really going to solve software and computing in the next few years in the sense that there won’t be as much people doing on computers because most of the digital infrastructure of our lives will be handled by these kinds of tools and then free us to do other things.” – Nat Eliason
• The next frontier of human innovation will be back in the physical world.

Crypto’s role in the future of AI

• Crypto can effectively solve the problems presented by AI, especially in financial transactions.
• “I think there are a lot of crypto features that will solve some of the problems that are well presented like paying less for website access to help them deal with the server load of AI agents that they are constantly scrubbing.” – Nat Eliason
• Ethereum is the ecosystem in which I am most active and most involved.
• “I love crypto and you know I love Ethereum especially that’s the ecosystem that I’ve always been very active in that I’m very involved in.” – Nat Eliason
• Crypto is a transparent solution for transactions between AI agents and existing services.
• “If everyone has an AI agent that does things and needs to interact with other AI agents or interact with existing services in a cheap and accessible way then crypto is the obvious right solution. – Nat Eliason
• It may take another decade for Ethereum and similar technologies to fully realize their potential with AI and agents.

Building a sustainable business in the crypto space

• The focus should be on building a solid business rather than chasing hype.
• “We want to figure out how to integrate crypto into this to build the best business possible and there’s a lot of opportunity where they don’t need to rush and react to hype and token prices.” – Nat Eliason
• Earning $10 million can lead to significant opportunities, including venture capital.
• “10,000,000 in revenue is amazing and you have to think that this opens many doors … when the first VC investment in a human company is impossible.” – Nat Eliason
• The strategic approach to business in the crypto industry goes against the usual focus on perceived profit.
• Building a sustainable business requires integrating crypto in ways that improve performance.
• The potential for growth and investment in new business models within the crypto space is significant.