At the Open Robotics AI Forum in Seoul, we saw just how quickly things are moving. AI, robotics, and blockchain experts sat in the same room. Deals, research, and ideas connected. And the timing, smack in the middle of Korea Blockchain Week, weren’t coincidental. Seoul is becoming a hotspot for on-device AI and crypto. Hardware, software, and capital are beginning to merge. The photos, brimming panel and keynotes, tell the tale. The forum wasn’t just talk. It had meaning — real funding, real research, real projects. That’s why many are calling it the week’s defining moment.
Industry Shifts
At the Open Robotics AI Forum, the headline act was RLWRLD’s $15 million support, with LG joining the party. That deal set the tone. Money is now pouring into robotic infrastructure, not just software. Jan Liphardt of OpenMind AGI mentioned AI robots running smoother when steered by blockchains. His slides displayed humanoid prototypes that might soon step into factories or hospitals. Recall the 40% bang researchers found when blockchain synced robotic teams. That’s no longer theory. Investors and builders are standing behind it.
The forum linked academics with companies such as AEON, coinIX and RLWRLD. All with a piece of the puzzle. Even funders such as Brendan Ahern proposed robotics as an investable market, not just a scientific challenge. That message resonated with participants who are seeking to connect AI projects with DeFi products. So it’s not venture funding any more. Now it’s global markets figuring out how to feed robots in the wild. The blend of technical depth and financial innovation made Seoul the right stage for the discussion.
Technical Progress
Open Robotics panels delved into reliable AI, physical AI challenges and robot payments. Eddie from AEON introduced agentic wallets—machines that transact crypto themselves. That sounds weird initially, but imagine: robots as economic agents in supply chains. One team talked about Proof-of-Stake for robot swarms, an approach that choreographs ground-based fleets. Think of bots farming tokens for access and rights to work. A 2025 MIT study also came up—showing markets can support robotics like ETFs do for stocks.
This isn’t abstract. XMAQUINA, supported by coinIX, is already constructing a DAO where collectives finance communal robots. That sort of decentralized governance keeps humans in command while scaling access. Liphardt, flanked by photos of human-shaped prototypes, demonstrated it’s more than just theoretical—these robots are actually moving and lifting and learning. The question lurking in the room – can we make this tech reliable and cheap enough to scale. The cut-through answer from the forum – use blockchain for trust, DeFi for liquidity and AI for decisioning. Together, they build new systems that can run outside of labs.
Final Take
The Open Robotics AI Forum wasn’t your typical tech gathering. It felt like a checkpoint. It was a different crowd from your usual conference: investors, scientists, builders — people who showed up with proof, who showed up with plans. Seoul is now at the heart of the AI economy–where hardware collides with capital and connections. Open Robotics will probably determine how robots function and where they are owned and who gets to use them. And the clear signal? This isn’t some distant future anymore. It’s getting constructed as we speak, block by block, bot by bot.
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