In the Age of Cyber War, Blockchains Might Just Be Our Last Line of Defense
Staff Writer • 2025-04-13
When a nation’s power grid collapses, a deepfake of its president goes viral, and military drones no longer need human pilots, what keeps the world from descending into chaos? According to Adam Bates, CMO of high-performance blockchain network MultiversX, the answer isn’t more missiles or higher taxes. It’s a decentralized, scalable infrastructure—starting with blockchain. On the latest episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, Bates delivered a sobering analysis of modern conflict, claiming we’re already knee-deep in digital warfare. “We had the first stages decades ago,” Bates said. “The Cold War was just the beginning. Now we have AI, mesh-controlled drones, and social media weaponized at scale.” And in that new theatre of war, Bates makes one thing very clear: centralized systems will fail us. AI Mesh Drones, Deepfakes, and the Death of Trust The interview, which ranged from quantum hacks in the UK to the Lazarus Group’s $1.4 billion Ethereum exploit, paints a chilling picture of our digital future. From mass surveillance to algorithmic scams targeting the elderly, Bates says the threat vector is no longer nation-states—but code and cloud. “Deepfakes and AI-powered voice cloning don’t need to be perfect to be dangerous,” he explained. “If it sounds like your daughter asking for help, you'll believe it. And scammers know this.” Couple that with speech synthesis and video AI, and you've got a global population increasingly unable to distinguish real from fake. “We’re too trusting,” Bates said. “We believe what we see on the internet—because it comes from our own devices.” Blockchain as Infrastructure, Not Investment Bates is no stranger to the noise of crypto speculation—but he's tired of it. “If I hear the word tariffs one more time, I might lose it,” he joked. His mission is more fundamental: reposition blockchain as critical infrastructure for the digital economy. “Think of blockchain as a real-time truth oracle,” he explained. “It’s the only technology that can provide probabilistic validation across decentralized systems.” In a world where misinformation spreads faster than facts and centralized databases are single points of failure, Bates argues that blockchain offers two lifelines: prevention and recovery. “Whether it’s verifying if a deepfake is real or rebooting a hacked nuclear plant, blockchain gives us decentralization, immutability, and speed,” he said. “It doesn’t prevent disaster—but it helps you survive one.” MultiversX and the Push for Sovereign Chains MultiversX isn’t just talking. The network is building what it calls LightSpeed Chains—sovereign, interoperable chains capable of sub-second finality and cross-chain communication. According to Bates, these are designed to plug directly into government, enterprise, and AI systems. “If you want to audit the inputs and outputs of a large language model in real-time, you need something that scales like MultiversX,” Bates said. “Otherwise, you’re flying blind.” This isn’t a pitch for speculative tokens. It’s a survival strategy for nations caught between centralized failure and decentralized potential. The Real Red Pill? A Browser That Tells the Truth Bates envisions a world where browsers come with truth meters—think HTTPS padlock, but for authenticity. “I want something that says ‘this content is 80% likely to be real’—backed by blockchain,” he said. “It’s not about censorship. It’s about informed decisions.” But he’s also wary of corporate capture. “The moment a billionaire owns the trust layer, you’ve already lost,” he said, referencing Elon Musk’s control of X (formerly Twitter) and its implications for AI data pipelines. One message rings clear: the future isn’t about choosing between AI or blockchain, but whether we’ll survive the convergence of both. As Bates put it: “Blockchain isn’t just for crypto anymore. It’s for civilization.”
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