In a conference room in Beijing last week, representatives from 29 nations signed onto a vision for governing artificial intelligence—a centralized, sovereign framework designed to shape the future of machine intelligence. But hidden in the fine print of that agreement was a signal louder than any technical specification: blockchain and cryptocurrencies were explicitly excluded from the conversation. Not sidelined. Not deferred. Cut out.
As someone who has spent the past seven years auditing the ethical foundations of crypto projects—from the chaotic 2017 ICO boom to the DeFi trust repair workshops I ran in Shenzhen—I can tell you this exclusion is not an oversight. It is a strategic choice. And it tells us more about the future of decentralized technology than any price chart ever could.
Context: The Sovereign AI Arms Race The 29-nation AI governance body proposed by President Xi Jinping is the latest move in a high-stakes game of global tech supremacy. It mirrors the US-led initiatives like the Biden administration’s AI Bill of Rights, but with a distinctly sovereign flavor. The Chinese vision places control in the hands of state institutions, not multi-stakeholder committees or open-source communities. It is a fortress built to protect national interests, not to foster global collaboration.
This is not new. Since 2017, China has followed a “technology isolation” policy toward cryptocurrencies: support for enterprise blockchain (like the Blockchain-based Service Network) combined with a total ban on public blockchains and trading. The AI governance body codifies this same split at the highest level. By excluding blockchain, Beijing signals that AI—the crown jewel of its technological ambition—will be kept pure from the decentralized, borderless ethos of Web3.
Core: The Deeper Signal in the Exclusion What does this mean in practice? First, it confirms that the “China Web3 Renaissance” narrative—which some market participants hoped would emerge from Hong Kong’s licensing regime—is dead on arrival for the mainland. The AI body’s exclusion is not just about AI; it is a reaffirmation that any technology that challenges state control (cryptocurrencies, censorship-resistant networks, decentralized governance) is enemy territory.
Second, it sharpens the “technological decoupling” story between the US and China. The exclusion of blockchain from the AI governance framework is a clear signal that the two superpowers are now diverging not just on trade or data, but on the fundamental philosophy of how emerging technologies should be governed. One side builds with open protocols and permissionless innovation; the other builds with walled gardens and state oversight. Based on my experience mediating between Chinese AI researchers and blockchain architects in the 2026 forum I helped organize, this gap is widening, not narrowing.
But there is a hidden nuance here that most commentators miss. The exclusion of blockchain from the AI governance body actually strengthens the argument for permissionless, sovereign-resistant networks. When a nation actively walls off a technology, it becomes a litmus test for its value. Bitcoin’s original promise was as a hedge against state money; now, decentralized computing and AI-related protocols (like those aiming to verifiably prove AI model outputs on-chain) become hedges against state-controlled intelligence.
Contrarian: The Fortress Has a Hidden Weakness The popular reading of this news is bearish for all things crypto-China. And yes, any project that hoped to access Chinese government resources or the mainland consumer market for Web3 products just hit a hard ceiling. But the contrarian angle is that this exclusion may inadvertently supercharge Hong Kong’s role as a bridge.
Hong Kong is positioning itself as the “try before you buy” zone for Chinese state capital. The city’s new virtual asset licensing regime, while conservative, is a genuine attempt to create a compliant sandbox. The AI governance body’s blunt rejection of blockchain could paradoxically push more mainland capital and talent to Hong Kong’s shores, seeking a regulated outlet for their crypto ambitions. I saw this pattern during the 2022 bear market, when the Shenzhen support network I ran helped developers relocate to jurisdictions that valued their work.
Furthermore, the exclusion creates a powerful rhetorical weapon for the anti-regulation crowd. If a nation’s definition of “responsible AI governance” explicitly bans censorship-resistant technology, doesn’t that prove the technology’s political importance? Every wall has a price. China’s AI fortress may be strong, but it is also a map for dissidents and privacy advocates: “Here is where freedom must be built.”
Takeaway: When Bridges Are Burned, Build in Code The 29 nations in Beijing agreed on a future where AI is controlled. But the technology they left behind—blockchain—is inherently a technology of trust without control. The exclusion is not a death knell for crypto; it is a defining moment. It tells us which side we are on. Building bridges where code ends and trust begins is not just a slogan; it is the only viable strategy when governments choose fortresses over networks.
Auditing ethics before auditing assets means recognizing that the real value of decentralized technology is not in the price of a token, but in its ability to provide a neutral ground when every nation is building walls. Community over code, always—but code is all we have when the community is divided by geopolitics.
So as the AI governance body takes shape, I will be watching not the conference halls of Beijing, but the block explorers of permissionless networks. That is where the truly global intelligence will be built.