In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), how will Bitcoin change?

CoinPost, a blockchain media outlet, reported on March 4 that NYDIG, a major U.S. cryptocurrency investment firm, recently analysed the macroeconomic impact of AI on Bitcoin in a report. It said the key is not technological factors but interest rate policy.

NYDIG opposed pessimistic views that AI will collapse the economy. It explained that technological innovation has always reshaped economies, citing historical examples. It said the steam engine and electricity replaced labour but ultimately drove economic growth.

The report’s author Greg Cipollaro (그렉 시폴라로) said, “We have been in this situation before. The steam engine replaced the labour of people and livestock with mechanical power, expanding industrial scale, and electricity advanced further and reconstituted the economy itself.”

He argued that AI is closer to electricity than to the steam engine. He said AI is not merely a tool that promotes workplace efficiency but something that requires transformation of economic and organisational structures and restructures social infrastructure.

The report also said Bitcoin’s direction depends more on government interest rate policy than on AI itself. It said if AI boosts economic growth while lowering interest rates, it is likely to be a positive factor for Bitcoin. If it drives interest rates higher, it could have a negative impact on Bitcoin.

The report mentioned the possibility that AI agents could transform payment systems. It said if systems emerge in which AI directly carries out transactions, such as Coinbase’s ‘Agentic Wallet’, the early Bitcoin vision of “machine-to-machine payments” could become reality. But the outlet said it would be difficult to replace existing payment systems in the short term if consumer incentives are lacking.

Cipollaro said, “Historically, society’s balanced response to new technologies has been integration, not obsolescence, and society’s response to AI will probably follow the same pattern.”