Bitcoin’s future in an AI-driven world may depend less on code and more on central banks.
Greg Cipolaro, global head of research at financial services and infrastructure company NYDIG, believes in a new report 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, sits downstream of these forces.
If automation reduces employment and wages, consumer demand may weaken and, in severe cases, lower incomes will strain debt payments and put pressure on asset prices.
These concerns appear to be well-founded. Just this week, Jack Dorsey’s fintech company Block announced that it would be reducing its size to pre-pandemic levels, laying off about 40% of its staff. Dorsey cited the job-killing efficiencies brought about by artificial intelligence, a theory advanced by Citellini in research on the AI apocalypse that shocked markets this week.
In this case, policymakers may lower interest rates or fiscal spending to stabilize the economy. This wave of liquidity could support Bitcoin, which often tracks changes in the global money supply.
The mixed results don’t look very friendly to cryptocurrencies. If AI can boost productivity and economic growth without causing massive job losses, then real yields may rise and central banks may keep tightening policy.
Historically, higher real interest rates have weighed on Bitcoin by raising the opportunity cost of holding it and making risky assets less attractive.
demand changes
Anxiety about artificial intelligence echoes turbulent moments in human society in the past.
Steam engines replaced manual labor in factories and farms. Then electrification reshaped the entire industry. Later, computers and the Internet automated paperwork and reshaped retail, media, and finance.
Each wave raises 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 reduced the number of typists and back-office staff. Recently, e-commerce has helped hollow out the brick-and-mortar retail role.
Yet aggregate demand did not collapse. Productivity increased. New industries absorbed displaced workers, even if the transition was uneven and painful. Today we have industries that were unimaginable before the internet. Think about cloud computing.
Cipolaro thinks artificial intelligence may follow a similar pattern. As a general-purpose technology, it requires companies to redesign workflows and invest in complementary tools. Over time, this process tends to expand production capacity rather than shrink it.
“This is not to say disruption will be painless, but rather that the historically balanced response to new technologies has been integration, not obsolescence,” Cipolaro wrote. “Society’s response to artificial intelligence is likely to follow the same pattern.”
For Bitcoin, this distinction is important. If AI ultimately boosts long-term growth, the structural backdrop may differ from the short-term shocks that typically drive liquidity injections.
At the same time, adoption is also likely to rise due to agent payments, which are essentially software paying other software without human involvement. One of Bitcoin’s earliest visions focused on machine-to-machine payments, and artificial intelligence may be the necessary tool to make that happen.
Still, there are currently no incentives for large-scale rollout. Cipolaro noted that credit cards bundle rewards and short-term credit, features that stablecoins cannot yet match.
Ultimately, while the rise of artificial intelligence brings new challenges, what matters is the human response to the disruption it brings. If AI triggers a deflationary shock and forces the money-printing press to restart, or if it drives a productivity boom that boosts real yields, Bitcoin will reflect this.
