ARK Invest Chief Futurist Brett Winton said Oct. 25 that Bitcoin (BTC) may help holders understand what they own during an AI-driven attack on bank records, while data-center investment raises the cost of holding Bitcoin.
On The Wolf of All Streets, Winton outlined a hypothetical case in which AI corrupts a bank's ledger. He said such damage could make it harder to determine who owes money to whom and could interrupt local financial activity. If the affected bank were large, the disruption might also reach global finance, he said.
Winton contrasted that scenario with an exchange breach. Attackers could divert cryptocurrency and inflict severe losses, he said, but private keys and asset locations could still help clarify who controls the assets. In that kind of disruption, Bitcoin holders might retain clarity about what they own.
That protection has custody risks. Winton said exchange customers can sometimes move assets into personal wallets, though the option is not guaranteed. He also warned that infrastructure used to support cold wallets has faced attacks, while individuals may lack the time or ability to follow every vulnerability.
Winton described Bitcoin as a digital-gold substitute whose portability can make it harder to seize. He said stablecoins have reduced Bitcoin’s prospects as a medium of exchange or unit of account in the current business cycle. He sees most of its value in that gold-like role, and said Bitcoin and gold could roughly share a market, judged by their market capitalizations.
The competing demand for investment is coming from AI computing, Winton said. He described an urgent need for capital to build data centers and expects those projects to generate strong returns, with some returns already visible. Because investments expected to pay off sooner can look more attractive than assets without immediate returns, he said, the capital pull reaches beyond cryptocurrency and affects businesses worldwide. Some investors remain unconvinced about data-center returns, he added.
