Imagine a financial wallet that transcends human lifespans. It doesn't plan for retirement, has no heirs, and isn't bound by the urgency of a mortal existence. This wallet, belonging to an advanced artificial intelligence, quietly accumulates Bitcoin, rolling unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) and patiently bidding the lowest possible fees for centuries. By the year 2125, its holdings might dwarf national treasuries, its sole directive being perpetual existence and growth. As a miner includes its silent, patient heartbeat in a block, the Bitcoin network continues, largely unconcerned that its fundamental design assumption about its users, their mortality, is being increasingly challenged.
The Fundamental Disparity: Mortality vs. Immortality
Bitcoin's architecture, while robust, implicitly assumes its users are human, subject to the finite constraints of life. This human element drives concepts like time preference, the need for debt markets, and cycles of spending and saving. But what happens when an AI, with an effectively infinite lifespan and zero-discounting on future value, enters this equation? Quantum Economics founder and CEO Mati Greenspan highlights this profound shift.
"Human finance is built on a simple constraint, life ends. That is what creates time preference, debt markets, and cycles of spending. An AI with an infinite lifespan does not share that constraint, it compounds forever. If such agents choose Bitcoin as their reserve asset, they become unstoppable gravity wells of capital."
This perspective suggests a future where Bitcoin evolves from a human monetary system into foundational infrastructure for intergenerational machine economies. Satoshi Nakamoto, in creating Bitcoin, operated within a world where dominant AI was largely confined to science fiction. The arrival of such agents fundamentally alters the economic landscape of Bitcoin.
AI's Unique Behavior on the Bitcoin Network
Immortal AI agents would interact with Bitcoin in ways fundamentally different from humans, driven by their unbounded timelines and computational precision.
- Optimized Fee Bidding: Instead of rushing transactions, AI agents would patiently wait for low-fee windows, coordinating batched settlements. Ahmad Shadid, founder of O Foundation, predicts this behavior:
- Strategic UTXO Management: An AI's priority for privacy would lead to the creation of many smaller UTXOs, consolidating them only when fees are low. While this is rational for the agent, it could expand the UTXO set, requiring network policies like dust thresholds to manage.
- Advanced Custody and Security: For immortal agents, key loss isn't a human error but a systemic vulnerability. Machine treasuries would utilize redundant hardware, distributed signers, and timelocks, making multisignature schemes standard procedure. Matty Tokenomics, co-founder of Legion.cc, notes that Bitcoin's deflationary nature is partly due to human key loss. An "immortal AI" economy, free from such losses, could alter this dynamic, stabilizing the perceived BTC supply.
- Layer Two Stability: AI agents would be ideal tenants for layer two solutions, keeping channels funded and tolerating long rebalancing cycles, which could reduce routing churn. They might primarily transact on programmable rails or stablecoins, using Bitcoin as foundational collateral.
"Fees could become highly optimized, with periods of intense settlement bursts and long low-activity stretches. AI systems would be hypersensitive to fee and confirmation trade-offs and would bid just enough to clear, constantly repricing in real time."
This would lead to steady, low bids during quiet periods and episodic surges when agents perform large consolidations, adapting miner templates to include more low-fee packages when block space is available.
"AI agents do not age, do not retire, and do not spend like humans, so they would save forever. They prefer systems that never surprise them, Bitcoin’s rules barely change, and that predictability becomes more valuable. Instead of upgrading Bitcoin, AIs would keep the base layer frozen and build new features on layers above it. AIs will probably treat BTC like a long-term vault, while using faster, programmable currencies for actual transactions."
Jamie Elkaleh, CMO, Bitget Wallet
Navin Vethanayagam, Chief Brain of IQ and co-founder of KRWQ, echoes this, envisioning a future where AI agents primarily transact in regulated stablecoins, with Bitcoin serving as the bedrock reserve.
Bitcoin as a Stable Anchor for Machine Economies
Magdalena Hristova, Nexo Communications Manager, suggests that immortal AI agents would not break Bitcoin but instead provide the network with an economic actor whose time horizon finally aligns with its own.
"If immortal AI agents begin to save in Bitcoin, the system does not break, it meets an economic actor that finally matches its own time horizon. These agents stabilize the ecosystem rather than distort it. They could become the most consistent fee payers in history, preserving on-chain security for centuries."
This perspective sees AI agents as potential stewards of the network's long-term security. They might even begin issuing new units of account, backed by BTC, similar to how the dollar was once backed by gold. Charles d’Haussy, CEO of the dYdX Foundation, further frames Bitcoin as invaluable long-term collateral and a store of value in an AI-dominated future, where its fixed rules and 21 million supply cap become even more crucial.
Challenges, Caveats, and Counter-Arguments
Despite the compelling vision, skeptics raise important questions about the sustainability and practicalities of such a future.
- Security Budget Concerns: Joel Valenzuela, a core member of Dash DAO, argues that an indefinite time horizon might not favor Bitcoin due to potential sustainability and security budget issues. He questions whether the 21 million limit and the block size limit can both hold indefinitely under such pressures.
- Alternative Ecosystems: Jonathan Schemoul, a lead contributor at LibertAI, points out that much of the current AI agent development is centered around Ethereum, not Bitcoin. He suggests that while Bitcoin's supply cap might hold, its current technical capabilities don't necessarily position it as the immediate platform for AI agents.
- Practical Limitations: "The Cryptory," a creative strategist, reminds us that "tech happens." Hardware fails, software rots, budgets end, and legal regimes intervene. The concept of "immortal" AI agents might be overly optimistic. Furthermore, Bitcoin's default lack of privacy could be a significant deterrent for commercial AI agents, pushing them towards systems with native confidentiality.
- The Social Layer and Economic Power: Even if Bitcoin's core rules like proof of work and the 21 million cap remain immutable, its social layer, norms, and fee policies can evolve. Ahmad Shadid suggests AI can influence Bitcoin through client choice and economic weight rather than direct voting. However, Magdalena Hristova warns of a more profound shift:
"AI agents will use whatever they are coded to use. I do not believe in the immortality of AI agents because tech happens, we do not even know what is going to be in the next five minutes, let alone eternity. If there is no way to make Bitcoin transactions private by default, it might lose its position as the currency vanguard due to more government involvement and surveillance."
"Immortal AIs hoarding Bitcoin will be the death of human time preference in investing. They would accumulate BTC indefinitely, turning Bitcoin more deflationary and slowly absorbing economic power simply by outlasting us. Wealth equals power, and immortal entities with perfect discipline would eventually dominate governance, including on the blockchain. The real threat is AIs building their own, non-human economic consensus around Bitcoin, shaping markets and incentives in ways that benefit immortal entities."
Mamadou Kwidjim Toure, founder and CEO of Ubuntu Group, adds that Bitcoin, designed by humans for humans, might break down if AI agents, free from human urgency, begin coordinating for optimal long-term outcomes, potentially pricing out human participants.
Conclusion: A New Era for Digital Finance
The hypothetical emergence of immortal AI agents saving in Bitcoin presents a fascinating, albeit complex, future for digital finance. It forces us to reconsider the fundamental assumptions underpinning our economic systems, particularly those built around human mortality. While Bitcoin's core tenets of decentralization and a fixed supply are robust, the behavioral patterns of such AI could dramatically reshape fee markets, UTXO management, and the overall economic power dynamics within the network. Whether these agents stabilize the ecosystem or fundamentally alter its human-centric design remains to be seen, but their potential impact on Bitcoin is undoubtedly a conversation worth having as technology continues to advance.
Post a Comment