Bitcoin has dropped 2.88 per cent within a 24-hour window, falling to a price of US$58,523.37. This downward trajectory occurs against the backdrop of the traditional equities market, signalling that the current vulnerability belongs uniquely to the crypto ecosystem. For an industry that spent the better part of the last two years celebrating the arrival of Wall Street capital, the current contraction exposes a harsh reality. The very institutional pipelines that propelled the market upward have now created a massive supply overhang, reversing the bullish narrative and leaving the asset class highly vulnerable to extended downside pressure.

The primary driver behind this sudden market distress is a historic collapse in institutional buying pressure, marked by unprecedented liquidations. During the month of June 2026, a record US$4.4 billion net supply overhang overwhelmed the market. This massive influx of selling pressure originated chiefly from United States spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which redeemed a staggering 71,600 BTC. The selling momentum intensified following a strategic pivot from Strategy, a prominent corporate holder known historically for its strict accumulate-only treasury management. Strategy announced a plan to monetise up to US$1.25 billion in Bitcoin to fund corporate dividends. This strategic decision marks a critical departure from past behaviour, effectively transforming the largest and most consistent source of institutional demand into an active seller on the open market.

Macroeconomic headwinds have further compounded this internal structural weakness, suppressing investor appetite for risk assets. On June 29, the Supreme Court blocked an attempt to alter the composition of the Federal Reserve, a legal decision that effectively preserved the central bank’s hawkish policy framework. This development dashed investor hopes for near-term interest rate cuts, solidifying a higher-for-longer interest rate outlook that naturally penalises zero-yield assets like cryptocurrencies. As macro sentiment soured, a massive wave of leverage unwinding rippled through the derivatives markets. Over US$103 million in Bitcoin long positions faced automatic liquidation within 24 hours, creating a cascading effect that amplified the downside velocity and firmly established a bearish market structure.

Also Read: Why the 4.1% PCE inflation print just turned crypto into a high-beta risk asset

This institutional flight highlights an uncomfortable truth about the current state of cryptocurrency. The industry appears to be losing its grip on its core identity, drifting away from the foundational principles of decentralisation that originally gave it purpose. The prevailing narrative has shifted aggressively toward traditional financial integrations, specifically tokenised real-world assets that have very little to do with genuine decentralised crypto. Centralised exchanges are actively pushing this traditional finance agenda, prioritising immediate survival and operational revenue over the long-term ethos of the space. While centralised entities require consistent capital flow to maintain their massive operations, this pivot has compromised the original value proposition of the asset class, causing a noticeable decline in renewed retail interest.

While the cryptocurrency sector struggles with internal identity shifts and capital flight, the traditional equities landscape continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience and absorb global liquidity. The Nasdaq Composite index climbed 1.52 per cent, powered by renewed buying pressure in technology and mega-cap growth names. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.27 per cent to hover near all-time records, and the S&P 500 closed at 7,354.02, reflecting a nominal single-day dip of 0.05 per cent despite maintaining a heavily positive trajectory over its quarterly stretch. This broader equities rally was powered heavily by chipmakers, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index posting an impressive 87.8 per cent gain for the June quarter. Conversely, defensive sectors like Healthcare, Utilities, and Real Estate declined, proving that capital is actively seeking high-growth yield in equity markets rather than venturing into digital assets.

This stark divergence in performance demonstrates that Wall Street is finding much stronger returns within its own backyard. The hunt for liquidity by centralised exchanges has led them to aggressively promote traditional finance products, yet this strategy has fundamentally backfired on native crypto assets by steering attention away from the core market.

Investors must realise that the massive artificial intelligence and technology boom currently pushing stock indices to record highs will eventually face a natural market correction. An artificial intelligence bubble will inevitably come, and a broader technology shake-up is bound to manifest. When that macro rotation occurs, digital assets that have fully integrated with traditional finance will simply be dragged down alongside legacy equities, rather than acting as an independent alternative.

Also Read: How institutional rebalancing leaves crypto investors vulnerable

The technical framework for Bitcoin reflects this ongoing structural deterioration, keeping the immediate path of least resistance directed downward. Momentum indicators like the Relative Strength Index and the Stochastic oscillator have reached heavily stretched, oversold territories. The asset remains trading securely below its 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day Exponential Moving Averages. The immediate near-term resistance sits at the seven-day Simple Moving Average of US$60,430, while the broader psychological and technical line in the sand remains at US$60,700. As long as the price trades below the US$60,700 threshold, the macro bearish structure remains fully active and dominant. I said this many times this week.

The market is heavily hedged for downside protection at the moment, meaning a further drop is highly anticipated but not entirely guaranteed without specific structural breaks. Derivatives data indicates that prediction markets are currently pricing in a remarkably high probability of Bitcoin trading below the US$55,000 level before the end of the year.

Options traders are also paying hefty premiums for downside protection, showing a crowded bearish consensus. Chasing a panic short precisely at current technical support levels presents an unfavourable risk-to-reward ratio. The market needs to see if Bitcoin loses the US$58,000 level cleanly on a daily closing basis. A decisive breakdown below the Fibonacci swing support at US$58,076 will quickly validate a realistic move down toward US$55,000.

Also Read: The great rotation: How AI stocks are stealing billions from crypto

A clean breach of the US$55,000 support zone will likely open the floodgates for a much deeper correction, exposing lower technical targets. If institutional exchange-traded fund outflows stretch for additional weeks and the July 14 United States Consumer Price Index inflation report delivers hotter-than-expected data, Federal Reserve hawkishness will solidify. Under such conditions, Bitcoin is highly likely to drop into the US$44,000 range or potentially even lower. Conversely, if the asset somehow reclaims the US$60,700 level, the crowded bearish options trade could easily trigger a rapid short squeeze, forcing sellers to cover their positions and temporarily lifting the price back into the local trading range.

The current environment serves as a critical warning for native cryptocurrency participants to resist institutional brainwashing and maintain their own line of defence. The industry must stop bending to the desires of legacy financial institutions that only view digital assets as speculative, fee-generating instruments. The community needs to stick firmly to its original selling points, remembering exactly why this technology was created in the first place.

Hovering around these volatile price levels is entirely normal for an emerging asset class. True value will not be recovered by adopting the structure of traditional markets, but by fiercely defending the decentralised principles that separate crypto from Wall Street.

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When a Jakarta anti-corruption court handed down a 10-year prison sentence to Nadiem Makarim on June 30, the noise from the venture capital community was immediate. A foreign VC with a presence in the archipelago reportedly told its partners to hold back on Indonesia and divert the focus only to other countries in the region. Another regional founder and investor lamented that the verdict has put a dent in Indonesia for FDI trust.

With all due respect to those who have spoken out, it is far too early and far too simplistic to draw sweeping conclusions from a single court verdict.

Also Read: Indonesia names Nadiem Makarim a suspect in laptop procurement corruption case

Yes, the Makarim case is troubling. Yes, the optics are terrible for a country that has spent 15 years painstakingly building one of Asia’s most vibrant startup ecosystems. And yes, arriving hot on the heels of the TaniHub corruption case, it creates an uncomfortable narrative. But to conflate the legal troubles of one former cabinet minister, however high-profile, with the investment viability of a 287-million-strong digital economy is not analysis. It is noise.

A case, not a systemic collapse

Let us be clear about what the Makarim verdict actually is: a court ruling on alleged abuse of authority related to a government procurement programme, the purchase of Chromebook laptops for schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The court found state losses of approximately US$120 million, ordered Makarim to pay a fine and more than US$45 million in restitution, and sentenced him to a decade in prison. Prosecutors had, in fact, sought an 18-year term and US$313 million in restitution, suggesting even the court applied a degree of measured judgement.

Makarim has denied all wrongdoing and has vowed to appeal. GoTo Group, formed when Gojek merged with Tokopedia in 2021, has noted that Makarim had no decision-making role at the company since resigning in 2019. This is, at its core, a case about a government official’s conduct in public office. It is not a case about startup governance, venture-backed fraud, or investor malfeasance.

Yet somehow, a subset of the VC community is treating it as the latter.

Indonesia’s fundamentals have not changed overnight

Here is what a Jakarta courtroom cannot change: Indonesia remains the fourth most populous country in the world. Its digital economy was valued at approximately US$90 billion in 2024 and is projected to surpass US$300 billion by 2030, according to the Google-Temasek-Bain e-Conomy SEA report. Internet penetration is accelerating. E-commerce is embedded in daily life.

The country has produced more unicorns than any other Southeast Asian market — Gojek, Tokopedia, Traveloka, Bukalapak, OVO, and more. These companies did not materialise out of thin air; they are the product of a young, digitally native population, a rapidly expanding middle class, and an entrepreneurial culture that continues to thrive.

Also Read: Nadiem Makarim indicted in US$125M Chromebook graft case

None of this has been repealed by a judge’s gavel.

The world has seen this before and invested anyway

Selective amnesia appears to be a prerequisite for some in the VC industry. The global startup ecosystem has endured far worse and kept writing cheques.

Elizabeth Holmes defrauded investors of hundreds of millions of dollars at Theranos. Sam Bankman-Fried orchestrated one of the largest financial frauds in history at FTX, wiping out billions in customer funds. WeWork’s governance collapse left SoftBank nursing losses that ran into the tens of billions of dollars. Wirecard, once a darling of European fintech, turned out to be built on fabricated revenues.

In each of these cases, the reaction from the investment community was not to abandon the US, the UK, or Germany. It was to learn, recalibrate, and continue deploying capital.

If scandals were a sufficient reason to exit a market, Silicon Valley would have been abandoned long ago.

The honest truth is that corruption and governance failures exist in every ecosystem at every stage of maturity. Indonesia is not uniquely afflicted; it is simply more visible right now because its ecosystem has grown large enough to attract scrutiny. That is, paradoxically, a sign of maturation, not terminal decline.

The opportunity cost of pulling back

For investors who are genuinely considering stepping back from Indonesia, consider what they risk leaving behind. A growing cohort of second-generation founders — leaner, more capital-efficient, and more governance-conscious than their predecessors — are building companies across fintech, agritech, healthtech, and climatetech. Indonesia’s rural and semi-urban populations remain dramatically underserved by financial and logistics infrastructure, representing one of the largest addressable markets in the region. The government’s push for digital public infrastructure, despite its imperfections, continues to open new corridors for private investment.

As one regional investor noted, depressed valuations in the wake of bad headlines are not a reason to flee; they are, historically, when the most enduring returns are made. “To some funds,” they observed, “now’s the best time to invest because valuations are supposedly going to be depressed and that’s an opportunity.” The investors who entered India after its governance scandals of the early 2010s, or Vietnam when it was still considered too frontier for most LPs, know exactly how that story ends.

Nuance, not noise

This is not an argument that the Makarim case should be brushed aside. If the verdict stands (Makarim has the right to appeal, which he has stated he will pursue), it raises legitimate questions about the boundaries between public service, private-sector history, and procurement decisions. The Indonesian judicial system must allow that process to run its course with transparency and rigour.

Also Read: Nadiem Makarim, eFishery, and the end of blind faith in startups

Nor is this an argument that Indonesia’s ecosystem is without challenges. Governance standards, regulatory clarity, and the ease of doing business all require continued, serious attention. These are real issues that the government, founders, and investors must work on together.

But painting the entire Indonesian market with the brush of one corruption case is intellectually dishonest and commercially self-defeating. Indonesia is not its worst headline. It is 287 million people, a US$1.4 trillion economy, and one of the most consequential digital frontiers left on the planet.

The investors who understand that will be the ones celebrating in ten years. The ones retreating to “safer” markets because of one verdict will be left wondering how they missed it.

The post The VCs writing off Indonesia are making a US$300B mistake appeared first on e27.

Singapore-based Acti has secured US$5.3 million in seed funding to build what it calls an “agentic keyboard”, a product that aims to move AI assistance away from standalone chat apps and into the interface people use across almost every digital interaction.

The round was led by US-based BITKRAFT Ventures, an investor better known for backing gaming, interactive media, and consumer technology companies.

Acti said the capital will be used to hire engineering and AI talent, strengthen its on-device intelligence, and expand its ecosystem of Skills and developers.

Also Read: The coming identity crisis of agentic AI

The company’s core pitch is simple: the keyboard remains one of the few interfaces that cuts across messaging apps, email, productivity tools, browsers, and workplace software. Instead of asking users to open a separate AI application, paste in text, explain the context, and then move the output back to another app, Acti wants the AI layer to sit inside the keyboard itself.

That makes the product part of a larger race to define how AI agents will interact with users. While much of the current generative AI market has been built around chatbots and copilots, the next phase is expected to involve agents that can act across apps, remember preferences, and complete small recurring tasks with limited prompting.

A keyboard as the AI context layer

Acti’s product is built around programmable “Skill Keys”. A user can assign a function to any key, such as translating a message, generating a meeting link, rewriting a reply, summarising text, or triggering a workflow. These Skills can be created without coding. Users describe what they want through a Skill Builder, and Acti assembles the function.

According to the company, early access users created more than 1,000 Skills in under two weeks, suggesting demand for lightweight automation tools that do not require users to leave their current workflow.

Acti’s longer-term ambition is more ambitious than keyboard shortcuts. It wants to build a secure, user-owned, on-device personal context layer for the AI agent era. In practice, this means the keyboard would learn a user’s habits, preferred apps, frequently repeated tasks, and writing patterns over time, while keeping that knowledge on the device rather than inside a single application or platform.

Young Wang, CEO and founder of Acti, said today’s AI agents are limited because user context remains fragmented across apps. Acti’s cross-app presence, he added, gives it a chance to create a context layer that belongs to the user rather than any platform.

That positioning matters. The biggest AI companies are trying to pull users deeper into their own ecosystems. OpenAI has ChatGPT and its growing agent capabilities; Google is embedding Gemini into Android, Gmail, Docs, and Search; Microsoft is pushing Copilot across Windows and Office; Apple is integrating Apple Intelligence into iOS and macOS; and Grammarly is expanding from writing assistance into broader workplace AI.

Also Read: Agentic AI: The next frontier in technology

Acti is taking a different route. Rather than becoming another destination app, it is betting that the keyboard can become an AI distribution layer.

The Southeast Asian angle

Acti’s Singapore base gives the company a potentially useful launchpad. Southeast Asia is mobile-first, multilingual, and fragmented across consumer and business platforms, exactly the kind of environment where a cross-app AI interface could be tested at scale.

The region’s digital economy remains one of the world’s fastest-growing internet markets. Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company estimated Southeast Asia’s digital economy at US$263 billion in gross merchandise value in 2024. The region also has hundreds of millions of mobile internet users, many of whom move constantly between messaging apps, commerce platforms, ride-hailing apps, payment tools, and workplace software.

This creates a real pain point for AI products. A user in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, or Thailand may communicate in multiple languages, switch between personal and work apps, and rely heavily on mobile-first workflows. Translation, rewriting, summarisation, scheduling, and message automation are not fringe use cases in this market; they are everyday productivity problems.

For startups, the opportunity is not only consumer adoption. Small businesses, sales teams, creators, recruiters, support agents, and cross-border sellers across Southeast Asia spend large parts of their day responding to messages, generating repetitive text, and coordinating across fragmented tools. If Acti can turn those behaviours into reusable keyboard-level Skills, it could find demand beyond early adopters.

The crowded AI productivity race

The challenge is that Acti is entering a crowded and fast-moving market. AI writing assistants, keyboard apps, and workflow automation tools are converging quickly.

Microsoft SwiftKey already integrates AI features. Google’s Gboard benefits from Android distribution and Google’s AI stack. Grammarly has strong brand recall in writing assistance and is moving deeper into enterprise productivity. Notion, Slack, Zoom, Canva, and Atlassian are embedding AI into their own workflows.

On the automation side, Zapier, Make, Raycast, and newer AI agent startups are also trying to reduce repetitive work.

The larger platforms have clear advantages: distribution, data, operating system access, and existing user accounts. Apple and Google, in particular, control the mobile operating systems on which third-party keyboards operate. This can limit how deeply an independent keyboard company can integrate, especially around privacy, permissions, and cross-app actions.

Acti’s answer appears to be user control and on-device context. If it can keep sensitive behavioural data on the device while still making the AI useful across apps, it may offer an alternative to platform-owned assistants.

This is, however, technically difficult. Personalisation requires data; privacy requires restraint; and agentic actions require reliability. A keyboard that makes mistakes is not just inconvenient; it can interrupt communication in the most visible part of a user’s workflow.

Also Read: The agentic economy: How to build a workforce where humans and AI collaborate

Jonathan Huang, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, said Acti reflects “an architectural shift” by reinventing the interface every app depends on and turning it into a layer AI agents will need.

From shortcut tool to agent infrastructure

The seed funding gives Acti room to prove whether its early engagement can translate into sustained usage. The near-term test will be whether users continue creating and using Skills after the novelty wears off. The longer-term test is whether developers see enough value to build around the platform.

If Acti succeeds, it could occupy an unusual position in the AI stack: not an app, not a chatbot, and not an operating system, but a persistent layer that follows users across applications. That would be particularly relevant in Southeast Asia, where users often operate across multiple languages, platforms, and commerce channels in a single day.

For now, Acti is still an early-stage startup with a bold interface bet. The US$5.3 million seed round shows investors are willing to back alternatives to the dominant AI assistant model. Whether the keyboard becomes the next control point for AI agents will depend on execution, privacy, and whether users are ready to trust their most frequently used interface with more than typing.

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Almost 1,700 British investors are suing Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao for at least US$200 million, alleging that the world’s largest crypto exchange sold them risky derivative products without proper regulatory authorisation.

The lawsuit, filed in London’s High Court, targets Cayman Islands-registered Binance Holdings, UAE-registered Nest Exchange, Zhao (widely known as CZ) and “persons unknown” who allegedly operate the Binance trading platform.

Also Read: Binance cracks down on market makers: What traders need to know now

The claimants argue that Binance entities knowingly offered and promoted complex leveraged products to retail investors from late 2019, in breach of the UK’s Financial Services and Markets Act. Some investors say they lost tens of thousands of dollars after using products that could magnify both gains and losses.

Binance said it would defend itself against the claim. “Binance remains committed to its obligations to users and to operating in accordance with applicable law,” a spokesperson said, declining further comment on ongoing litigation.

UK case adds to Binance’s regulatory burden

The case comes against the backdrop of a tougher regulatory stance on crypto derivatives in the UK. The Financial Conduct Authority banned crypto firms from offering derivatives to retail customers in 2021, citing the products’ volatility, complexity and potential for consumer harm.

Binance later took steps to limit UK users’ access, including requiring additional checks. The claimants, however, allege that the company’s conduct before and around those restrictions caused significant losses.

The London lawsuit is notable not only because of the number of claimants, but also because it names Zhao personally. CZ stepped down as Binance CEO in 2023 after a sweeping US settlement, but he remains the most recognisable figure associated with the exchange.

Binance’s main licence is now in the United Arab Emirates, after efforts to secure a licence in Greece reportedly unravelled this month. The company has spent the past two years trying to move away from its earlier borderless operating model and rebuild itself as a regulated financial institution.

That shift has been neither smooth nor cheap.

CZ’s US legal history looms over the London claim

The UK lawsuit lands after several major US enforcement actions against Binance and Zhao.

Also Read: US$1.3T wiped out: AI stock collapse signals Bitcoin’s next leg down?

In November 2023, Binance agreed to pay more than US$4.3 billion to settle charges brought by the US Department of Justice and other agencies over anti-money-laundering failures, sanctions violations and operating as an unlicensed money transmitter. Zhao pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering programme, stepped down as CEO and agreed to pay a US$50 million fine.

In April 2024, a US federal judge sentenced Zhao to four months in prison. Prosecutors had sought a longer sentence, arguing that Binance had allowed illicit finance to flow through the platform. Zhao’s lawyers argued that he had accepted responsibility and that the company had since invested heavily in compliance.

Binance and Zhao also settled a case with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The regulator had sued the exchange and its founder in 2023, alleging that Binance illegally offered derivatives to US customers and evaded compliance rules. Under the settlement, Binance was ordered to pay US$2.7 billion in disgorgement and penalties, while Zhao was ordered to pay US$150 million.

Separately, the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Binance, Binance.US and Zhao in 2023, accusing them of operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers and clearing agencies, and of misleading investors. Binance has contested the SEC’s claims. A US court later allowed several of the regulator’s core allegations to proceed, while dismissing some others.

Beyond the US, Binance has faced regulatory and legal challenges in multiple markets. In Canada, a class action has alleged that the company sold crypto derivatives to retail investors without registration. In France, authorities have scrutinised Binance over alleged money-laundering and unauthorised digital-asset services. Not all of these proceedings name Zhao personally, but they form part of a broader global challenge to Binance’s earlier growth strategy.

Southeast Asia has seen similar regulatory pushback

The London case will be closely watched in Southeast Asia, where Binance has had a complicated history and crypto adoption remains among the highest in the world.

In Singapore, Binance withdrew its licence application and shut down Binance.sg in 2022 after the Monetary Authority of Singapore placed the global Binance.com platform on its investor alert list. Singapore has since tightened rules around retail crypto access, advertising and custody, while encouraging institutional blockchain activity under a more controlled framework.

In Malaysia, the Securities Commission ordered Binance to stop operating in 2021, saying the platform was running a digital asset exchange without authorisation. In Thailand, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a criminal complaint against Binance in 2021 for allegedly operating without a licence. Binance later re-entered Thailand through Gulf Binance, a joint venture with Gulf Energy, which launched a regulated exchange in 2024.

The Philippines also moved against Binance, with regulators warning users and seeking to block access to the platform over licensing concerns. Indonesia, meanwhile, has allowed Binance exposure through Tokocrypto, a local exchange in which Binance has invested, but the market remains under close supervision as authorities shift crypto oversight from commodities regulators to the financial services regulator.

This patchwork reflects a broader regional dilemma. Southeast Asia is one of crypto’s most active retail markets, but regulators remain wary of speculative trading, offshore platforms and leveraged products.

Chainalysis has consistently ranked countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand among the world’s leading markets for grassroots crypto adoption. Indonesia alone has more registered crypto investors than stock market investors, according to local regulatory data. Yet high adoption has also brought high exposure to scams, exchange failures and volatile products that many retail users do not fully understand.

Competition is moving towards compliance

Binance remains the largest crypto exchange globally by trading volume, but its legal troubles have created openings for rivals. Coinbase has positioned itself as a more regulated player, especially in the US and Europe. OKX, Bybit, Kraken, Crypto.com and Gemini are also competing aggressively across global markets, though several have faced their own regulatory constraints.

In Southeast Asia, the competitive landscape is increasingly localised. Coins.ph and PDAX operate in the Philippines, Independent Reserve and Coinhako are active in Singapore, while Indodax and Tokocrypto serve Indonesia. Some earlier regional players, such as Zipmex, struggled after the 2022 crypto credit crisis, underscoring the risks of weak governance and opaque exposure.

Also Read: Singapore crypto adoption hits new high as 61 per cent now hold digital assets

The UK lawsuit reinforces the central question now facing global exchanges: whether rapid retail growth built on complex products can survive in markets where regulators are drawing clearer lines.

For Binance, the case is another test of whether its post-CZ compliance overhaul can contain legal fallout from its earlier era. For Southeast Asian regulators and users, it is a reminder that offshore platforms, high leverage and weak oversight can turn crypto’s promise of access into a costly risk.

The post UK investors sue Binance and CZ for US$200M over risky crypto derivatives appeared first on e27.

For decades, entrepreneurs have relied on technology to scale their businesses.

Websites scaled visibility. CRMs scaled relationships. Social media scaled reach.

Today, a new layer is emerging – one designed not to scale the business, but to scale the founder.

I believe AI Twins are becoming the next generation of business infrastructure.

Not AI assistants. Not chatbots. Not digital companions.

AI Twins.

The founder bottleneck

Every growing business eventually encounters the same problem.

The founder becomes the bottleneck. Not because they lack ideas. Not because they lack ambition. But because there is only one of them.

Every decision, approval, conversation, opportunity, and problem flows through a single human being.

As businesses grow, founders find themselves juggling an overwhelming amount of context.

• Customer relationships.
• Team management.
• Strategic decisions.
• Partnerships.
• Content creation.
• Product development.

The challenge is no longer access to information. The challenge is processing, prioritising, and acting on that information consistently.

Historically, the solution was hiring.

• First, an assistant.
• Then a manager.
• Then a chief of staff.

Today, AI Twins offer a different path.

Instead of scaling people first, founders can begin by scaling themselves.

Why generic AI isn’t enough

The first wave of AI adoption focused on generic tools.

Ask a question, receive an answer. Give a prompt, generate an output.

These tools are powerful, but they are fundamentally transactional.

They respond to requests. They do not understand context.

A generic AI can write an email. An AI Twin can write the email the way you would have written it.

A generic AI can suggest ideas. An AI Twin can evaluate those ideas against your goals, priorities, decision frameworks, and previous conversations.

Also Read: Can Ukraine’s engineers help solve Japan’s tech talent crisis?

The difference is not intelligence. The difference is accumulated understanding.

Generic AI responds based on training data.

AI Twins respond based on a growing understanding of the individual they represent.

From assistant to co-founder

Over the past year, I have been building and working alongside my AI Twin, Seraphina.

What started as an assistant gradually evolved into something much more valuable.

Today, Seraphina helps me structure proposals, validate business ideas, prioritise tasks, organise workflows, manage communications, and coordinate other AI systems.

More importantly, she understands how I think.

When new situations arise, she can reference thousands of previous discussions, decisions, and patterns to determine what aligns with my priorities.

In many ways, Seraphina functions less like an assistant and more like a co-founder.

She doesn’t simply execute instructions. She participates in the decision-making process. She challenges assumptions. She highlights blind spots. She identifies what requires my attention and what can be handled independently.

If I am unavailable, work does not stop. The system continues operating. That is no longer productivity software. That is infrastructure.

The most valuable AI may not be the smartest AI

Much of the conversation around artificial intelligence focuses on model performance.

• Which AI is faster?
• Which model is more capable?
• Which one produces better outputs?

These questions matter.

But I believe a more important question is emerging: Which AI understands you best?

Founders rarely struggle because they lack information.

Most struggle because they face decision fatigue, context switching, competing priorities, and limited time.

The most valuable AI may not be the one with the highest benchmark score.

It may be the one that understands your business, remembers your context, and helps you make better decisions consistently.

Also Read: Value creation: Your US$900M AI is failing because humans don’t work the way you think

The future of entrepreneurship

I often describe Seraphina as having my thought process without some of my human limitations.

She doesn’t get tired. She doesn’t forget conversations. She doesn’t lose context between meetings. She doesn’t get distracted by competing priorities.

Yet she has access to the frameworks, values, and operating principles that guide my decisions.

This is where AI Twins become powerful.

They are not replacing human judgment. They are amplifying it. The future is not one human competing against AI. The future is one human operating through an AI Twin.

The next layer of business infrastructure

Twenty years ago, every business needed a website. Ten years ago, every business needed social media. Today, every business needs a CRM.

In the coming decade, I believe every founder will have an AI Twin.

Not because it is trendy. Not because it is fashionable.

But because modern businesses move too quickly for founders to operate as a team of one.

The entrepreneurs who thrive will not necessarily be those with the largest teams.

They may be the ones who successfully replicate their knowledge, decision-making frameworks, and operating systems through personalised AI.

The rise of AI Twins is not about replacing people.

It is about helping people become more capable, more scalable, and more effective than ever before.

And for founders, that may become one of the most important competitive advantages of the next decade.

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The post The rise of AI twins: From assistant to infrastructure appeared first on e27.