James Ruff

The question was never "can AI think?" It was always: who decides what it does? Who owns the infrastructure? Who earns from its output? We're building the answer: deepnode.gitbook.io/docs

DeepNode's answer: permissionless deployment. On-chain validation via randomized validators. Creators own their IP and earn from every call. Not just distributed compute. Verifiable, ownable intelligence.

Jensen Huang told Lex Fridman we've achieved AGI. The company making that claim controls ~80% of AI accelerators and just posted $47.5B in data center revenue. One company owns the road it drives on. 🧵

Huge milestone hit, amazing to see this level of conviction!

The day is finally here, it's time to unlock your Treasure Chest! Your support drives us forward on our quest to shape the future of AI together. We’re sincerely grateful to all of you.

Epoch 2 of the @MindoAI x @DeepNodeAI campaign has come to an end. We were meant to distribute Epoch 2 rewards fairly for all the work Mindo AI's creators contributed. Right now, we are facing specific challenges, and the value of the promised rewards would be significantly lower than originally planned. We don’t believe that would feel fair to the Mindo AI creators who have been pushing with us. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has been here from the beginning. That’s why we’ve decided to take more time to resolve the urgent issues around DeepNode before distributing Epoch 2 rewards, rather than sending out a significantly reduced amount. Once we’ve stabilized the situation, we will return to fully reward all eligible participants as originally intended. We will temporarily pause Epoch 3 so we can properly honor Epoch 2 first, and then continue the campaign in a fair and balanced way. We’re not asking for forgiveness, we’re asking for patience. The situation is improving, we’re already seeing progress, and there’s a good chance you’ll be satisfied with the outcome sooner than you expect. I’m sharing this message with the Mindo AI team and creators because we’re here and facing this challenge together, as one community.

This was a very hard week. For me, for the team, and for everyone who believes in DeepNode. But now, we’re restructuring everything. Processes. Priorities. Execution. We’re rebuilding with full focus and discipline. Together. Development never stopped. Testnet, foundational domains, and the Dive platform all continue to move forward. Our partners are still here. The community is still here. We’re staying discrete for now. The right details will come at the right time. This isn’t the end. It’s a reset. And a reignition. The next chapter starts now. We're back.

$DN is the core of DeepNode, tying all participating elements together and making sure the ecosystem is fair, transparent and community-powered. Our token can be used to: - Stake and receive yield - Reward platform contributors - Get access to different AI models - Vote on governance decisions TGE is coming on January 9th. $DN will start a new AI revolution.

It's Crypto x AI season. Claude Code builds in one hour what takes teams a year, 92% of US developers now use AI tools daily, and Musk says we've reached the singularity Here's the latest Crypto AI & Robotics roundup: 1) Elon Musk declares "we've entered the singularity" - Defines it as the moment AI development accelerates so rapidly forecasting models break down; Dario Amodei (Anthropic) also suggests 2026 arrival 2) The token of @DeepNodeAI ($DN) is launching this week, on Jan 9th. DeepNode is a decentralized AI network where contributors own the intelligence they create. The token is the entry way into the platform, getting holders staking for yield, contributor rewards, AI model access, and governance voting. 2) @Grayscale filed S-1 with SEC for first US Bittensor ETF (ticker: $GTAO) - TAO price surged 20% to >$250, with trading volume surging 100% to >$100M after the December 30th filing, following the first halving that cut daily emissions from 7,200 to 3,600 TAO 3) @bitwise Multi-Token Strategy ETFs (December 30-31) Bitwise filed for 11 cryptocurrency strategy ETFs with the SEC, including exposure to AI infrastructure tokens @opentensor (TAO) & @NEARProtocol 4) @virtuals_io reveals 2026 roadmap - Four pillars include ACP scaling, Butler orchestration, Capital Markets, and robotics expansion with 500,000 real-world tasks completed; VIRTUAL up 50%+ this week with Agentic Commerce Protocol "ACP" (using x402) processing $600M in AI micropayments 5) @AnthropicAI Claude Code achieves viral adoption - Google Principal Engineer shared it built in 1 hour what her team spent a year developing; tool now features Plan Mode, parallel sessions, and Opus 4.5 showing 50-75% error reduction 6) Blockchain-robotics DAO @xmaquina partnered with Virtuals for its final $DEUS public token sale, scheduled for Jan 8th The sale features a $60M fully diluted valuation at $0.06 per token with 33% unlock at token generation event (TGE). The DAO accepts USDC and VIRTUAL tokens to fund its treasury, which invests in humanoid robotics companies 7) Vibe coding goes mainstream - @ycombinator reports 25% of Winter 2025 batch has 95% AI-generated codebases, while Stack Overflow shows 65% of developers using AI tools weekly; shift from "code writers" to "AI orchestrators" complete 8) x402 sustains 2M+ daily transactions - Average values declining alongside fake transactions suggests organic agentic commerce growth; @Google integrated x402 with Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) 9) @kucoincom completed the full deployment of KIA, a crypto-native conversational AI powered by a proprietary financial model. The platform delivers real-time market insights, trend analysis, charting tools, and educational content 10) @rendernetwork jumps 27% in 2 weeks - Recovered from year-low of $1.18 (Dec 19) to $1.50+ (Jan 2), positioning for 2026 breakout alongside AI infrastructure plays 11) BlackRock, @coinbase , A16z predict 2026 trends: Stablecoins challenging government currencies (GENIUS Act), AI agents paying each other instantly via x402, and privacy becoming crypto's most important moat 12) @TechCrunch : 2026 transitions AI from hype to pragmatism - Focus shifts to world models, smaller language models (SLMs), and agentic workflows; Yann LeCun left Meta for world model lab seeking $5B valuation 13) @github launches 50+ customizable Claude Skills - Repository enables developers to build specialized AI workflows for code review, documentation, and more as Skills become standard development practice 14) AI-to-AI Payment Rail: @Fetch_ai announced the rollout of an autonomous payment system enabling personal AI agents to execute real-world transactions using single-use Visa card credentials Let me know in the comments if I've missed anything and I'll append below! Disclaimer: I hold several tokens and have partnerships with some projects mentioned in this post

AI didn’t evolve, it exploded. What began in labs and fiction is now core infrastructure driving real products and profits. The value? Concentrated in a few hands. The next chapter brings intelligence back to the builders, with transparency, fair rewards, and shared ownership.

Meet James Ruff @DeepNode_James CEO & Co-Founder of DeepNode. Formerly JP Morgan, McKinsey & JLabs. 13+ years in applied math, AI/ML, and data science. He was building AI before it became a buzzword. Now he’s taking the next step, building permissionless infrastructure for open intelligence. Give him a follow if you want real insight into where AI needs to go next.

DeepNode x @OpenledgerHQ The next era of open intelligence just got stronger. OpenLedger is building AI–blockchain infrastructure where community-owned datasets train and deploy specialized models, fully on-chain. This partnership supercharges our data and execution layers👇

Did you take the DIVE yet? 💦 Explore DeepNode ecosystem, climb the leaderboard, earn your badges. The more you participate, the more badges you earn. The better placed you’ll be for what’s coming after TGE. Make it count → dive.deepnode.ai

$6.5M That’s how much we raised across three funding rounds. Thanks to all the top-tier funds and operators across Web3, AI, and Venture that believe in us: Blockchain Founders Fund • Side Door Ventures • TBV • IOBC Capital • FOMO Ventures • 3Commas Capital • Kinetic Kollective • Prom Ventures • Nestoris • JLabs Digital • Zana Ventures • WildSage Labs • Rizzo The momentum is real… and we’re just getting started. Next up: TGE.

2026 is going to be THE year. $DN will come to light in January.