Metaplanet’s Simon Gerovich believes AI agents will hold Bitcoin as their primary store of value

Simon Gerovich, the CEO of Metaplanet, wrote on X that the acceleration of society to machine-to-machine commerce will lead to Bitcoin becoming a primary store of value. 

The Metaplanet executive was responding to the viral and equally ominous paper by Citrini Research, written from a June 2028 perspective. Citrini Research tells a grim story of how humans will be displaced by AI agents and existing models of business will collapse. 

Gerovich’s firm currently has the 4th largest Bitcoin reserve among publicly traded firms, behind Saylor’s Strategy, MARA Holdings, and Twenty One Capital.

Why would AI agents choose Bitcoin over traditional bank accounts?

Gerovich’s position is that as AI agents maximize productivity, they will naturally move away from human systems like banks, credit cards, and government-issued currencies. Instead, they will seek the most efficient, frictionless assets available, like Bitcoin.

“When machines start optimizing financial plumbing they route around card networks, around banks, around friction. They transact in digital assets because that’s what makes sense for a machine. And when they need to store the value they generate, they won’t park it in a money market fund. They’ll hold digital capital. They’ll hold Bitcoin.” Gerovich wrote on X 

One of the most striking parts of his analysis is how AI agents will handle money. They will not stay with a bank because of loyalty to that brand or out of habit. AI agents do not care about the “vibes” of apps or friendly faces. 

Because AI agents optimize for efficiency, Gerovich and Citrini Research pointed out that a machine will not pay a 2-3% interchange fee charged by companies like Mastercard and Visa if it can settle a transaction for a fraction of a penny using stablecoins on Solana or Ethereum Layer 2s.

The report predicts that Mastercard’s revenue growth will slow significantly as “agent-led price optimization” takes over in early 2027. It predicts that in September of 2027, Zendesk, the software company, will miss its debt covenants on a $5 billion loan because AI agents began handling customer service so well that companies no longer needed to pay for seats or licenses for human workers. 

As for the Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) that banks used to secure these loans, they too  will simply vanish.

Gerovich argues that AI agents won’t put money in a traditional bank because banks are tied to governments that are losing their tax base, and as unemployment rises, those governments will likely print more money to cover their debts, which in turn devalues the currency. 

Logical as they are, AI agents will see this inflation coming and will choose to hold an asset that cannot be inflated or seized. In this scenario, that is Bitcoin.

Will AI productivity actually make the average person poorer?

The report from Citrini Research tagged “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis” suggests that by late 2026 and into 2027, the success of AI will lead to a 10.2% unemployment rate. 

The report calls this Ghost GDP. For example, a single GPU cluster might do the work of 10,000 white-collar workers. On a balance sheet, the productivity looks amazing. However, those 10,000 workers are no longer buying houses, cars, or restaurant meals. This creates what is referred to as a Human Intelligence Displacement Spiral.

The report predicts that by late 2026, the S&P 500 will drop 38% from its highs. The number of job openings will fall below 5.5 million, a 15% decline year-over-year. It goes further to explain how the total spending power of the economy will collapse when white-collar workers lose jobs paying $180,000 and move into gig-economy roles paying $45,000. Companies will be forced to lean even harder into AI to save costs, which will lead to even more layoffs.

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