Jordi Visser: The Easy AI Money is Gone – Next Wave is Structural, Tied to Crypto
Former macro investor Jordi Visser argues the "easy money" AI trades (7-8x returns) are finished. The next phase, he says, is slower, more structural, and runs directly through crypto. Retail has not yet arrived, but the real opportunity lies in AI’s crumbling moats and the accelerating geopolitical adoption of digital assets.
Why AI is Losing Its Moats 🛑
- Speed of competition killed advantage: Intelligence is becoming abundant and commoditized. China (DeepSeek, partly state-backed) and xAI (Grok) caught up without the massive compute assumed necessary. Visser asks: if intelligence is free, how can any idea have scarcity?
- Capital isn't a moat either: Eric Schmidt claimed capital is more important than energy, but Deep Seek was born from a hedge fund (down 16% last week) with the Chinese government as its only capital-raising buyer. Xi Jinping is now mirroring Deep Seek’s philosophy.
- The real bottleneck is memory: AI agents suffer from amnesia – like the movie "50 First Dates." The context window problem is unsolved. We can make memory, but we cannot make it fast enough. This keeps GPU supply low and prices high. The compute shortage persists.
How Bitcoin & Crypto Fit In 🔗
- Stablecoins are replacing SWIFT: Visser sees a global race for financial infrastructure. Japan, South Korea, and Russia have all passed major pro-crypto regulation. Stablecoin adoption is inevitable – Stripe and PayPal merging merchants and consumers proves it.
- Geopolitical adoption is real: Governments want their hands on the "new financial guardrails." Bitcoin is not a global currency; it's the reserve asset. Stablecoins are the payment rails.
- The Clarity Act is a sideshow: Goldman Sachs' CEO supports it, but Visser says crypto already has clarity. The real unlock is infrastructure. Tokenization is happening at the NYSE and beyond – it’s no longer performative.
The Convergence: One Portfolio Story 🧠
- AI and crypto are no longer parallel trades. They are the same story moving at the same speed. Behind every AI breakthrough sits intelligence, but behind every intelligence breakthrough sits a crypto infrastructure need (compute, memory, settlement).
- Most portfolios are not priced for this structural shift. Visser insists the time for homework is over – investors must be overweight crypto, tied to AI's downstream hardware and financial rails.
🔑 Final Takeaway: The market is waiting for retail enthusiasm, but the real narrative is diplomatic and technical. AI's memory bottleneck and stablecoin adoption are converging into a single structural investment theme. The easy money is done; the hard, structural money has just begun.