Ravi Tanuku, CEO of KRAKacquisition Corp. (KRAKU) — the Nasdaq-listed SPAC sponsored by U.S. crypto exchange Kraken and venture firms Natural Capital and Tribe Capital — says don’t write off crypto despite the prolonged bear market. Speaking about the sector’s long-term prospects, Tanuku argued that digital assets are a more durable investment than many traditional software companies facing an existential threat from rapid advances in artificial intelligence. KRAKU, which raised $345 million in its January IPO, is actively hunting for crypto-native targets valued between $2 billion and $10 billion, Tanuku said. That hunt comes even as turbulence continues across markets: parent company Payward (Kraken) delayed its own planned IPO earlier this month amid a crypto slump, and the CoinDesk 20 Index is on track for a sixth consecutive monthly decline. Tanuku declined to discuss Kraken’s IPO plans personally. Tanuku’s key point: while AI is reshaping the tech landscape, it poses a clearer and more immediate risk to SaaS models than it does to crypto protocols. “If you were a SaaS company and you wanted to go public and you didn't go public, you have a bigger problem now, which is whether or not you have an answer for AI,” he said. Unlike price volatility in crypto, the threat from AI to software businesses is “more existential, longer-term” and harder to shake. That shift in investor focus doesn’t automatically make crypto the next big winner, Tanuku cautioned — AI remains the dominant thematic. But with capital looking for alternatives to traditional SaaS plays, he thinks digital assets are among the strongest secular stories after AI, naming stablecoins and payments as particularly promising subsectors. Tanuku is also watching intersections between crypto and AI. He pointed to growing interest in agentic commerce — autonomous AI-driven buying and selling — and floated the idea that tokenized financing could play a role in building the expensive infrastructure AI needs. “I'm curious if somebody doesn't start to float tokens to figure out how to finance some of this infrastructure,” he said, suggesting token models might offer new ways to provide yield and returns to investors supporting AI-scale projects. In short: KRAKU sees opportunity in crypto firms that are both native to digital assets and positioned to benefit from the AI-driven reshaping of tech — especially where token economics can help fund next-generation infrastructure. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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