The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) with blockchain technology was supposed to produce a new crop of millionaire-maker "AI cryptos." Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case. Every single AI investment thesis has flopped this year, with many top AI cryptos down anywhere from 40% to 60% for the year.
But what if we're looking in the wrong place? What if the millionaire-maker AI crypto is hiding in plain sight?
The role of Bitcoin in the age of AI
Yes, I'm talking about Bitcoin (BTC -0.28%). During a recent Bloomberg interview, billionaire Michael Saylor, the founder and executive chairman of Strategy, suggested that the rise of artificial intelligence might actually be bullish for Bitcoin.
As Saylor points out, AI agents will soon be conducting tens of thousands of micro-transactions per minute. As a result, they will need some form of digital currency to carry out those transactions. Saylor suggests that the Bitcoin Lightning Network, the super-fast payment network built on top of the core Bitcoin blockchain, might be the answer. In fact, he even calls AI a "demand driver" for Bitcoin.
Image source: Getty Images.
In many ways, Saylor's view of AI and Bitcoin is similar to the view held by Cathie Wood of Ark Invest. In 2023, the Ark Invest team discussed Bitcoin's potential to become "the currency for AI." This was less than one year into the ChatGPT revolution, but Cathie Wood was already talking about the role of AI agents. If you want these AI agents to do your tasks (such as buying something for you online), you're going to need to give them a way to pay for things.
This is where Bitcoin enters the picture. Since a single Bitcoin can be split into 100 million different pieces (each known as a Satoshi), this makes it very useful from the perspective of micro-transactions. That's one big advantage that a digital currency such as Bitcoin has over traditional fiat currencies (which can only be split into 100 different pieces).
Is Bitcoin built for AI?
The potential intersection of AI and Bitcoin raises all sorts of fascinating questions. Is Bitcoin really the best digital currency to carry out all of these AI micro-transactions? Can the energy-intensive Bitcoin network deal with the energy-intensive needs of AI? And, perhaps most importantly, will AI agents outsmart their human masters and decide to hoard all their Bitcoin, instead of spending it as they're told?
Keep in mind: Bitcoin was not built for AI. Bitcoin launched in 2009, long before anyone was talking about ChatGPT, generative AI, or large language models. Obviously, there is no mention of AI in the famous Bitcoin whitepaper.
However, in the whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto did describe Bitcoin as a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system." So, if you think about AI bots as being "peers," then maybe Nakamoto was right after all. Only it won't be the humans doing all the transactions on the electronic cash network -- it will be the AI bots.
Right now, the core Bitcoin blockchain can't handle the massive activity load required by AI, since it can only handle a paltry seven transactions per second. So it will require new solutions built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. For example, the Bitcoin Lightning Network can theoretically process more than 1 million transactions per second.
If not Bitcoin, then what?
If you're looking to invest in AI cryptos, there are plenty of options. According to CoinMarketCap, there are now eight AI cryptos with a market cap higher than $1 billion. The problem, quite frankly, is that their performance this year has been ghastly.
Of these eight cryptocurrencies, the top performer has been Bittensor, which is actually down 17% for the year. Most AI cryptos are down anywhere from 40% to 60% for the year, and some smaller-cap AI cryptos are down 90% or more. You're probably not going to become a crypto millionaire investing in these coins.
What's particularly striking is that nobody has been talking about the intersection of AI and crypto in 2025. For example, Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, recently penned a blog post on the future of super-intelligent AI ("The Gentle Singularity") and did not include a single mention of crypto.
So maybe it's still too early to be talking about the intersection of AI and crypto, or the emergence of new millionaire-maker cryptos. Until other cryptocurrencies start inserting themselves into the AI narrative, I'm sticking with Bitcoin as the best AI play out there.
