Bitcoin’s future in an AI-driven world may depend less on code and more on central banks.
In a new note, Greg Cipolaro, global head of research at financial services and infrastructure firm NYDIG, claimed that artificial intelligence will affect bitcoin primarily through macroeconomic channels and its impact on the labor market.
The key variables are growth, employment, real interest rates and liquidity. Bitcoin, he writes, lies downstream of these forces.
If automation eliminates jobs and wages, consumer demand could weaken and, in a severe case, falling incomes would strain debt repayments and put pressure on asset prices.
These fears seem well-founded. Just this week, Block, Jack Dorsey’s financial technology company, unveiled its return to its pre-pandemic size, reducing its workforce by about 40%. Dorsey cited the effectiveness of AI for job cuts, something that was theorized in Citrini’s AI disaster research that spooked the market this week.
In such a scenario, policymakers could respond with lower rates or fiscal spending to stabilize the economy. This wave of liquidity could support Bitcoin, which has often followed changes in the global money supply.
A different outcome would seem less favorable to cryptocurrency. If AI boosts productivity and economic growth without major job losses, real returns could rise and central banks could maintain tight policy.
Higher real rates have historically weighed on bitcoin by increasing the opportunity cost of holding it and making risky assets less attractive.
Change in demand
Anxiety around AI echoes past moments of upheaval in human society.
The steam engine supplanted manual labor in factories and farms. Electrification then rewired entire industries. Later, computers and the Internet automated office work and reshaped retail, media, and finance.
Each wave has raised fears of permanent job losses. In the early 1900s, the mechanization of factories sparked labor unrest as machines replaced skilled craftsmen. In the 1980s and 1990s, personal computers eliminated the number of typists and back-office staff. More recently, e-commerce has helped hollow out the roles of physical retail.
Yet overall demand has not collapsed. Productivity has increased. New industries absorbed the displaced workers, although the transition proved uneven and painful. We have industries today that were unthinkable before the dawn of the Internet. Consider cloud computing.
Cipolaro argued that AI could follow a similar model. As a general-purpose technology, it requires businesses to rethink workflows and invest in complementary tools. Over time, this process tends to increase production capacity rather than reduce it.
“This does not imply that disruption will be painless, but that the equilibrium response to new technologies has always been integration, not obsolescence,” Cipolaro wrote. “Society’s response to AI will likely follow the same pattern.”
For Bitcoin, this distinction is important. If AI ends up driving long-term growth, the structural context could differ from the short-term shocks that often result in liquidity injections.
At the same time, adoption could also increase through agent payments, which would essentially allow software to pay other software without human involvement. One of the earliest visions for Bitcoin centered around machine-to-machine payments, and AI could be the tool needed to make that a reality.
Yet there is currently no incentive for large-scale deployment. Credit cards bundle rewards and short-term credits, features that stablecoins don’t yet match, Cipolaro noted.
Ultimately, while the rise of AI brings new challenges, what matters is the human response to the disruption it brings. If AI triggers a deflationary shock and forces the printing press back into operation, or if it fuels a productivity boom that increases real returns, bitcoin will reflect the consequence.
