Crypto Pioneer Warns AI Could Spark Banking and Infrastructure Shocks

Marc van der Chijs, who co-founded bitcoin mining company Hut 8, has shifted much of his investment focus from bitcoin toward artificial intelligence. However, growing concerns about AI are now prompting him to move some of those gains back into crypto.

Van der Chijs said he has become increasingly uneasy about the direction of AI development, despite previously comparing the technology’s potential with his early experience investing in bitcoin.

“I’ve become more of a doomer over the past week, to be honest,” he said in an interview with CoinDesk.

His changing outlook comes as he continues to believe AI could significantly reshape the global economy. His concern now centers on whether people will be able to maintain control as the technology develops at an increasingly rapid pace.

“We have lost control, actually,” he said, adding that he is concerned about the speed of progress until humans can regain meaningful control over AI development.

Van der Chijs’ concerns echo warnings from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who has called on the technology industry to slow the development of frontier AI systems. Amodei has warned that rapidly advancing models, including systems capable of improving themselves, could eventually move beyond effective human oversight and create widespread damage to critical infrastructure.

Both have pointed to the competitive pressure surrounding AI as a major challenge. Companies and governments are racing to develop increasingly capable systems, creating incentives for participants to continue moving quickly even when individual organizations might prefer greater restraint. This dynamic could increase systemic risks before effective international safeguards are established.

AI Could Reveal Weaknesses in Financial Systems

Van der Chijs believes a major disruption could eventually force governments to cooperate on AI regulation and safety. Such an event could involve financial networks or critical infrastructure, he said.

He is particularly concerned about the banking sector. According to Van der Chijs, AI could uncover weaknesses in older banking software and potentially undermine confidence in institutions that rely on highly interconnected systems.

Within the cryptocurrency industry, he considers exchanges and companies operating around bitcoin to be more exposed to such risks than the Bitcoin network itself.

Despite his concerns, Van der Chijs remains highly optimistic about AI’s long-term economic impact. He expects AI and robotics could eventually handle between 90% and 95% of jobs currently performed by humans, potentially causing the prices of many goods and services to fall significantly.

Such a transformation would also create fiscal challenges for governments as traditional employment declines. Van der Chijs suggested that policymakers could consider taxes on robots or AI token usage, although he acknowledged that collecting taxes could become difficult when AI models operate locally.

His own investment strategy has already reflected the growing importance of AI.

“I sold a lot of my bitcoin. I went into AI,” he said.

Van der Chijs believes the movement of investment capital into AI helped prevent bitcoin from reaching the $200,000 to $250,000 range that he and other investors had previously expected.

He is now reversing part of that allocation by moving some of his AI profits back into cryptocurrency, mainly through exchange-traded funds.

Van der Chijs also sees stronger commercial opportunities in AI infrastructure than in bitcoin mining. Speaking personally, he described Hut 8’s shift toward AI as “the best move ever” and said that if he were running the company today, he would focus its capital entirely on AI data centers.

AI Optimism Comes With Valuation Concerns

Van der Chijs’ concerns about AI risks have not changed his belief in the technology’s long-term potential. However, he does not consider every AI-related investment attractive at current valuations.

Over the next five years, he expects Tesla and SpaceX could outperform Anthropic, even though he believes the leading AI developers could eventually become some of the largest companies in the world.

Bitcoin continues to hold a unique position in his investment outlook. If he were forced to choose only one asset to hold for the remainder of his life, bitcoin would remain his preferred choice.

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