AI tokens dive by 29% even as Web3 adoption skyrockets – What’s going on?

• AI tokens market cap dropped 29.33% in 30 days, despite growing web3 adoption.
• Global crypto users reached 659 million, showing rising adoption.

While Web3 adoption hit new highs, AI-focused tokens fell hard. This divergence between the two signals major decoupling between AI tokens and wider Web3 usage. 

Web3’s rocket fuel isn’t lifting AI coins — yet

Over the past 30 days, the AI token market capitalization dropped by 29.33% to $26.72 billion. For starters, Bittensor [TAO] declined by 29% over the past month, recording losses across all the charts.

Equally, TAO’s Market cap declined by 4.24%, while the trading volume also dropped by 14%, reflecting strong downward pressure. 

Source: CoinMarketCap

Near Protocol [NEAR] declined by 27.12% over the same period, with its market cap declining by 4.45%. 

In fact, Artificial Superintelligence [FET] dropped by 25.68%, and Render [RNDR] dipped 32.8%. These losses recorded across the market signify a shift in investor behavior. 

And yet, adoption metrics flash green

Interestingly, while AI coins are declining, Web3 adoption is skyrocketing. Web3 adoption is rapidly growing, driven by the perceived potential of decentralized technology. 

Source: MordorIntelligence

The Web3 blockchain market is projected to grow from $7.23 billion in 2025 to $42.29 billion by 2030, per Mordor Intelligence.

This continued growth reflects growing demand for the technology, especially in emerging economies.  Additionally, crypto user growth surged to 659 million in 2024, up 14% YoY, according to Triple-A

Source: Triple-A

At the same time, the total market value of crypto-related assets has surged to $3.2 trillion. However, this is a drop from an all-time high of $3.8 trillion recorded in December 2024. 

AI tokens decoupling from Nvidia stock

Nvidia’s stock closed at $155.09 on the 27th of June, up 6.66% over five days, with its Market Cap sitting at $3.78 trillion. 

Source: Google Finance

Normally, such a sharp AI-related equity rally would lift AI token sentiment too, but that link seems broken.

AI tokens no longer mirror Nvidia’s bullish trajectory, hinting at a new phase of decoupling between equities and tokens.

With this fading correlation, AI tokens appear more tied to broader crypto movements than to real-world AI leaders.

Their performance has aligned more with altcoin momentum than Nvidia’s gains, suggesting investor behavior is evolving.