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Marc van der Chijs isn’t sleeping well. The co-founder of bitcoin miner Hut 8 has spent months warning anyone who’ll listen that artificial intelligence could hit banking systems and critical infrastructure hard — and probably before regulators figure out what to do about it.
His concern isn’t vague. Van der Chijs thinks the raw speed of AI development is the problem. Companies racing each other, governments racing companies, everyone sprinting toward capabilities nobody fully understands yet. That competitive pressure, he believes, is basically killing any chance of meaningful international cooperation on safety standards. And without those guardrails in place early, the disruptions could be severe. He’s not alone in that fear — Anthropic’s CEO has made similar warnings about AI’s potential for widespread disruption, and the conversation is getting louder across the industry.
Banking Systems in the Crosshairs
Van der Chijs is pretty specific about where he thinks the damage shows up first. Legacy banking infrastructure. He sees those old systems as genuinely vulnerable to what AI can do — not necessarily through direct attack, but through erosion of confidence. If AI can expose weaknesses, fabricate convincing fraud at scale, or simply move faster than compliance teams can track, trust in the financial sector starts to crack.
Worth noting: he doesn’t think bitcoin itself is the weak link. The bitcoin network, in his view, stays robust. But the businesses built around it — exchanges, custodians, trading platforms — those are a different story. They’re more exposed. They run on human teams, legacy tech stacks, and compliance frameworks that weren’t designed for this speed.
And yet he’s not purely pessimistic about AI. Far from it. He actually thinks AI could transform economies in ways that are genuinely good — cheaper goods, cheaper services, massive gains in efficiency. His estimate of how many jobs AI and robotics could eventually handle sits at around 95% of current roles. That’s not a typo. Ninety-five percent. The economic math on that is staggering, and it raises an obvious question: if most jobs disappear, where do governments collect tax revenue?
Tax Robots, Reinvest in Crypto
Van der Chijs has thought about that question. His answer is taxing robots or AI token usage — essentially finding a way to capture value from automated labor the way governments currently capture it from human labor. He’s quick to admit that’s complicated, especially with locally managed AI models that are harder to track and regulate. But he thinks governments won’t have a choice. They’ll need new revenue streams, and fast.
His own money is moving accordingly. He’s sold a significant chunk of his bitcoin holdings and put that capital into AI technologies. He thinks that shift — not just him, but investors broadly rotating from bitcoin into AI — is one reason bitcoin hasn’t hit the $200,000 to $250,000 levels some people expected. Demand that might have gone into bitcoin went somewhere else instead.
But he’s not done with crypto. He’s started recycling AI profits back into the sector, mainly through exchange-traded funds. So it’s not an either/or for him — it’s more of a rebalancing. AI gets the growth allocation. Crypto stays in the portfolio.
He’s also selective about which AI companies he’s actually excited about. Despite predicting that AI developers will eventually dominate the corporate landscape, he thinks Tesla and SpaceX might actually outperform dedicated AI firms like Anthropic over the next few years. That’s a contrarian take, and he seems aware of it.
Hut 8’s Pivot and What He’d Do Now
Van der Chijs calls Hut 8’s move into AI a strategic success — and he means it. If he were running the company today, he’d go straight to AI data centers rather than bitcoin mining. Infrastructure over extraction. The thesis is that the physical layer of AI — the servers, the power, the cooling, the connectivity — is where durable value gets built.
That said, if someone forced him to hold just one asset, he’d still pick bitcoin. He’s been clear about that. AI might be where the growth is, and AI infrastructure might be where the smart money goes, but bitcoin remains his conviction hold when all other options are off the table.
His broader warning keeps coming back to speed. The development pace of AI isn’t slowing down, and the ability of humans — regulators, executives, governments — to manage it effectively is already being outrun. Other industry leaders share that worry, particularly around AI models capable of rapid self-improvement and the infrastructure vulnerabilities that creates.
Van der Chijs has moved his capital from bitcoin to AI while simultaneously reinvesting AI profits back into crypto through exchange-traded funds.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What specific banking risks does Marc van der Chijs warn about?
He warns that AI could undermine confidence in legacy banking systems and that crypto-related businesses like exchanges are more vulnerable than the bitcoin network itself.
Why does van der Chijs think bitcoin hasn’t hit $200,000 to $250,000?
He believes investor capital that might have flowed into bitcoin has been redirected into AI technologies instead, suppressing bitcoin’s price relative to earlier predictions.
Why It Matters
The insights from Marc van der Chijs highlight a growing concern within the financial sector regarding the rapid advancement of AI technologies and their potential to disrupt traditional banking systems. As the pace of innovation outstrips regulatory frameworks, the risk of systemic failures increases, which could have far-reaching implications for market stability and investor confidence. Understanding the intersection of AI and finance is crucial for stakeholders as they navigate an evolving landscape that may challenge established norms and operational structures.
