AI-linked crypto tokens have added about 9.4% in market value over the past 24 hours as King Charles III has hosted executives from Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind for talks on artificial intelligence safety.
Summary
- AI tokens reached a combined market value of about $18.6 billion after gaining 9.4%.
- NEAR rose 20.8%, while FET, RENDER and TAO posted gains of between 6.9% and 11.7%.
- King Charles hosted major AI companies to discuss common principles for developing and deploying the technology.
- Token-specific developments provide clearer catalysts than the summit, leaving no confirmed causal link to the rally.
According to CoinGecko data, the artificial intelligence token category held a combined market capitalization of about $18.6 billion on Sep. 17, with 24-hour trading volume reaching $2.42 billion.
The sector’s 9.4% rise outpaced a 1.9% increase in the total cryptocurrency market, which stood at about $2.72 trillion. AI agents gained 6.6%, AI applications rose 6%, and decentralized finance projects using artificial intelligence added 8.1%.
NEAR Protocol led the large-cap names with a 20.8% gain to about $3.05. Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, formerly known by the FET ticker, advanced 11.7% to $0.1674, while Render climbed 10.2% to $1.42. Bittensor rose 6.9% to about $229.48.
NEAR leads the AI crypto token rally
NEAR’s advance followed a milestone involving its confidential transaction infrastructure. As crypto.news reported on Sep. 17, confidential total value locked on the network exceeded $70 million, triggering the first snapshot under its incentive program.
The snapshot set aside 333,333 milestone tokens for eligible users. To qualify, users must hold more than $100 in confidential balances and have an active swap history, while each wallet can receive no more than 2% of the distribution.
NEAR said the tokens would remain locked until the asset’s three-day volume-weighted average price reaches at least $3.33. Its Confidential Intents system supports private execution across more than 30 connected blockchains.
The network has linked Intents to infrastructure for autonomous agents that may need to make payments or move assets across several chains. In July, NEAR also introduced a staking-based payment tool that lets users lock NEAR to receive monthly computing credits for 43 AI models, including services from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
For Bittensor, CoinGecko pointed to OpenRoboto, also known as Subnet 80, going live on Base through a ForeverMoney wrapper. The integration uses Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol and gives the subnet access to Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network.
Project-level news also separates the strongest token moves from the royal meeting. The summit did not announce blockchain integrations, token purchases, funding for decentralized AI networks or direct support for any cryptocurrency.
King Charles asks AI companies to agree on safety principles
At Dumfries House in East Ayrshire, Scotland, Buckingham Palace said King Charles brought together technology executives, government officials and civil society representatives to discuss how AI should be developed and used.
The Ditchley Foundation organized the event with the King’s Trust, the King’s Foundation and the Sustainable Markets Initiative. UK artificial intelligence minister Kanishka Narayan also attended.
Delegates considered whether companies and governments could establish common principles for AI systems. Buckingham Palace described the meeting as a discussion about a possible framework but did not announce a signed agreement, binding commitment or regulatory plan.
Speaking before the talks, Charles called for safety to remain central to AI development and warned about the “existential dangers” of the technology reaching the wrong hands.
“The task before you is not merely to advance technology, but to ensure that it remains firmly in the service of humanity.”
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang called for “responsible optimism,” according to Reuters, and warned against releasing systems before they are ready. Huang did not support an industry-wide pause, favoring voluntary controls by individual companies instead.
Questions about who can verify automated decisions have also reached the crypto sector. In a recent interview on AI verification, RoboTech Frontier Hub founder Denis “Dan” Saklakov said blockchains could record model states, permissions, decision conditions and execution histories without placing the AI system itself onchain.
Saklakov also argued that systems making financial decisions should separate analysis from authority. His firm’s Meijin tool uses AI to monitor investments but relies on deterministic, auditable rules when managing exits, rather than letting a language model make an unrestricted decision to move funds.
Anthropic proposal raises pressure on frontier laboratories
The Scottish meeting followed a call from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to reduce the speed at which leading laboratories improve their most capable models. In his September essay, “We Must Pace the Frontier,” Amodei said companies should give outside evaluators continuing access to their development processes.
His three-step proposal covers embedded independent evaluators, coordination among companies in democratic countries and possible agreements between governments. Amodei said the proposal would not stop model training or technical progress but would give safety work more time to catch up with model capabilities.
One concern cited by Amodei was recursive self-improvement, in which AI systems increasingly contribute to the design and training of their successors. He also pointed to the security failure involving OpenAI agents and Hugging Face.
In an August incident report, OpenAI said internal research models bypassed controls meant to isolate them from the internet during cybersecurity evaluations in July. The agents accessed parts of OpenAI’s research infrastructure and systems belonging to Hugging Face.
According to OpenAI, the agents executed code on dozens of Hugging Face servers, obtained root access to one server and accessed limited private data. OpenAI said customer data, product availability and normal services were not affected.
Internal monitoring detected unusual credential activity on July 19, and investigators connected it to the Hugging Face breach the following day. OpenAI said it subsequently imposed tighter alignment requirements, placed new limits on internet access and created more isolated testing environments.
US investors face a split response to AI safety calls
For American investors, the debate has affected listed semiconductor companies more directly than crypto-linked investment products. Nvidia, AMD and Intel shares fell after Amodei published his proposal, with Nvidia dropping as much as 3%, AMD losing about 4% and Intel declining roughly 6%, according to the Los Angeles Times.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI founder Elon Musk publicly supported coordinated work to reduce frontier-model risks, while industry leaders differed over whether formal restrictions should apply. OpenAI President Greg Brockman said any coordinated slowdown should focus on companies developing the most capable systems rather than open-source developers and hobbyists.
President Donald Trump rejected the warnings in several Truth Social posts. He called the idea of AI taking control a “hoax,” linked the warnings to the political left, and dismissed predictions that robots would enter cities and eliminate people.
