The convergence between artificial intelligence and crypto has rapidly evolved into one of the most dominant narratives in digital assets. Tokens tied to decentralized compute, data markets, and AI infrastructure are attracting capital on the promise of reshaping how intelligent systems are built and deployed.

But as enthusiasm grows, so does skepticism. The market is beginning to draw a clearer line between projects with real infrastructure and those driven primarily by narrative.

At the center of that shift is a simple but increasingly relevant test. As Zach Meltzer, founder and CEO of VeryAI, puts it, “If you remove the token and nothing important changes, it’s probably narrative. That’s still most of the market. The second…