Marc van der Chijs, a prominent entrepreneur and co-founder of the bitcoin mining firm Hut 8, has publicly voiced escalating alarms regarding the trajectory of artificial intelligence. Once a fervent evangelist for the transformative power of emerging technologies, Van der Chijs has transitioned into a more cautious, if not pessimistic, observer of the AI revolution. His warnings come at a pivotal moment, as his own investment strategy reflects a complex balancing act between capitalizing on the AI boom and hedging against the potential systemic fragility it may induce.
In a recent interview, Van der Chijs admitted that his outlook has darkened significantly. "I’ve become more of a doomer over the past week, to be honest," he stated. This shift in sentiment is notable given his history; he has previously drawn parallels between the disruptive potential of modern AI and the early, wild-west days of bitcoin, which he began tracking in 2013. While he remains convinced that AI will fundamentally reshape the global economy, he has begun to question whether the human architects of these systems have retained the ability to govern them effectively.
"We have lost control, actually," Van der Chijs remarked. "And until we get the control back, I’m actually worried that we’re moving too fast."
A Growing Chorus of Caution
Van der Chijs’s shift toward a "doomer" perspective aligns with warnings echoing from the highest echelons of the tech industry. Most notably, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has recently urged global technology leaders to deliberately slow the pace of frontier AI development. Amodei has cautioned that the rapid, iterative process by which AI models improve themselves—often without human intervention or oversight—risks outpacing our ability to manage them, potentially leading to widespread damage to critical infrastructure.
The core of the concern lies in what many industry insiders call a "structural trap." There is an intense, high-stakes competitive race currently unfolding, not only between major corporate players but also between nation-states. This environment creates a perverse incentive structure: individual companies and countries feel compelled to accelerate their development cycles to avoid falling behind, even if that acceleration increases the risk of systemic failure. Under this pressure, restraint is often penalized, making the possibility of significant disruption or a catastrophic technological failure appear almost inevitable unless robust, internationally recognized guardrails can be established.
AI Exposing Hidden Vulnerabilities
For Van der Chijs, the primary danger lies in how AI might interact with the brittle, aging foundations of our modern world. He fears that a major, headline-grabbing disruption—perhaps targeting global financial systems or essential public infrastructure—may be the only catalyst strong enough to force governments and corporations to set aside their competitive agendas and cooperate on safety protocols.
The risks to the financial sector are particularly acute in his view. Van der Chijs believes that AI systems, if left unchecked, could inadvertently expose and exploit deep-seated vulnerabilities in legacy banking software. Modern banking relies on an incredibly dense, interconnected web of systems that were largely built before the advent of sophisticated, autonomous algorithms. Should AI agents gain access to these systems, the resulting instability could threaten the public’s confidence in financial institutions.
Within the crypto ecosystem, his assessment is nuanced. He views the underlying bitcoin network as resilient, but he suggests that the ancillary businesses—such as centralized exchanges and service providers built around the bitcoin economy—are significantly more vulnerable to AI-driven threats.
Despite these existential fears, Van der Chijs has not abandoned his belief in the long-term economic utility of AI. He envisions a future where AI and advanced robotics could potentially automate 90% to 95% of existing job functions. Such a radical shift in the labor market would inevitably drive a sharp decline in the cost of goods and services, creating a deflationary environment. However, this transition would present immense challenges for governments, which would need to completely rethink their revenue models in the face of dwindling income tax receipts. Van der Chijs has suggested that future fiscal policy might need to rely on taxes levied on robots or specific AI token usage, though he concedes that the rise of decentralized, locally run models makes such tax collection a complex, perhaps even impossible, endeavor.
Portfolio Rebalancing and Future Outlook
The evolution of Van der Chijs’s personal investment portfolio provides a window into these shifting convictions. "I sold a lot of my bitcoin. I went into AI," he explained. Reflecting on the recent market cycles, he noted that the massive redirection of institutional and retail capital toward AI-related infrastructure and development likely acted as a headwind for bitcoin, preventing the asset from reaching the $200,000 to $250,000 price points that many analysts had previously projected.
Having realized significant gains from his early bets on the AI sector, Van der Chijs is now in a phase of rebalancing. He is currently moving some of his profits back into the crypto market, primarily through exchange-traded funds (ETFs), signaling a desire to maintain exposure to digital assets while simultaneously hedging against the potential downsides of his AI investments.
His professional assessment of company strategy remains equally focused on this shift. Speaking in a personal capacity, he characterized Hut 8’s strategic pivot into AI-ready data centers as "the best move ever." He suggested that if he were currently in a leadership position at the company, he would advocate for an even more aggressive allocation of capital toward AI infrastructure, viewing the demand for compute as a more immediate and tangible business case than traditional bitcoin mining.
However, his enthusiasm for the sector is tempered by a discerning view of current market valuations. He warns that not every AI-related investment is inherently attractive, and he expects significant volatility as the industry matures. Looking toward a five-year horizon, he posits that established giants like Tesla and SpaceX could potentially outperform pure-play AI developers like Anthropic, even as he acknowledges that the leading AI firms are on a trajectory to eventually become the largest and most influential companies in the world.
Despite the profound risks he identifies and his ongoing diversification into AI, Van der Chijs maintains a distinct view of bitcoin’s role in a long-term strategy. It remains the one asset he would prioritize above all others if he were restricted to a single choice for the rest of his life. "I think of all the assets you can hold, if there’s just one, it would be bitcoin," he concluded. For Van der Chijs, while AI represents the greatest potential for economic expansion and, conversely, systemic risk, bitcoin serves as the ultimate hedge against the uncertainty that these very technologies are creating.
