AI cryptocurrencies initially jumped in price Wednesday evening after chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) beat lofty fourth-quarter earnings and first quarter guidance expectations and the move has gained strength since.

Taking the lead in terms of gains is Worldcoin’s WLD, which is up 40% on the day and almost 170% over the past 7 days. The token touched a new all-time high of $8.85 earlier and was trading at $8.54 at press time. Worldcoin was co-created by OpenAI founder Sam Altman and thus often associated with AI-related projects. SingularityNET {{AGIX}}, a decentralized AI marketplace, saw its token climb 43%. FetchAI {{FET}} was up 18%.

Other tokens associated with AI moving on Thursday included the Graph’s (GRT) which was up 17% and Render’s (RNDR), jumping 23%.

According to Strahinja Savic, head of data and analytics at FRNT Financial, there’s a number of reasons behind the recent AI-related token pump.

“The launch of [OpenAI's] Sora [and] Nvidia’s impressive sales forecast are fuelling broader optimism surrounding AI that is spilling over into crypto," said Savic in an interview with CoinDesk. "We’ve seen this in crypto in the past, where metaverse-related tokens rallied when Facebook changed its name to Meta.”

Savic posed the question of how effective exposure is to artificial intelligence via these AI-themed tokens as most don’t actually have a direct connection to the adoption being driven by OpenAI or Google’s Gemini. Gemini is Google’s family of AI models, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

“The use of blockchain tech for the purposes of AI remains unclear and at this point is highly experimental," continued Savic. "Having said that, buying AI-themed cryptocurrencies is more exposure to niche blockchain-based AI derivatives, rather than exposure to the mass adoption that has received so much attention recently."

Savic also noted that there’s a possibility that the demand for AI tokens is coming from investors in areas that don’t have access to U.S. equities. “It is conceivable that for an investor not able to buy stocks like NVDA, AI-themed tokens may be the next best thing,” he added.

Worldapp, which is Worldcoin’s first wallet built for the project, surpassed 1 million daily users earlier this week, according to the company.

worldcoin Sam Altman AI Nvidia

Lyllah Ledesma

Lyllah Ledesma is a CoinDesk Markets reporter currently based in Europe. She holds a master's degree from New York University in Business and Economics and an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of East Anglia. Lyllah holds bitcoin, ether and small amounts of other crypto assets.