Crypto Could Benefit More From AI Boom Than AI Stocks, Wall Street Veteran Says

A Wall Street veteran investor said cryptocurrencies could benefit more from the artificial intelligence boom than AI stocks.

Cointelegraph reported on Oct. 27 that Jordi Visser, founder of Visser Labs and head of AI Macro Nexus research at 22V Research, said crypto would not have entered the current bull market without AI. He said AI agents are creating demand for crypto payments and tokenized assets. Visser is a 30-year investing veteran who previously served as a managing director at Morgan Stanley and chief investment officer at Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers.

Visser compared AI agents to the arrival of smartphones in the crypto market. In his view, AI agents play the same role for crypto that app stores and smartphones did for mobile technology. As their use expands, activity in tokenized assets and crypto payments will rise, opening investment opportunities beyond computing infrastructure companies.

He took a more cautious view on AI stocks. Visser said it is becoming increasingly difficult for AI shares to repeat their explosive gains, adding that "the AI fireworks show is over." He also said his portfolio of 100 AI stocks is up about 40% this year, but over the past 126 days it has become more volatile than Bitcoin.

Based on that view, Visser expanded a crypto portfolio that had consisted only of Bitcoin, Ether and Solana through August into a broader basket of tokens. He now runs an equal-weighted index composed of 42 tokens and four listed stocks, which he said has outperformed Bitcoin since June. He is also watching Dogecoin as a signal of returning retail participation and named privacy coins Zcash and Monero as investment targets.

Still, Visser said a sharp downturn in the AI market could weigh on the crypto bull market. If the AI market suffers a major collapse, the bull run would not necessarily end, but recent lows could be tested again, he said.