Crypto could outperform AI stocks: Wall Street veteran Jordi Visser

Cryptocurrencies could deliver a better payoff from the artificial intelligence boom than AI stocks themselves, according to Visser Labs founder Jordi Visser.

Explosive gains in AI stocks are becoming harder to repeat, Visser tells Cointelegraph’s Trade Secrets. At the same time, AI agents are creating demand for crypto payments and tokenized assets.

“Without AI, I don’t think crypto would be going through this bull market,” he says.

Hyperscaler capital spending and free cash flow (left), and forward valuations compared with the S&P 500 (right). Source: JPMorgan Asset Management

As a result of his thesis, he has expanded his own holdings beyond Bitcoin, Ether and Solana into a broader basket of tokens.

Visser’s three-decade career includes stints as managing director at Morgan Stanley and chief investment officer at Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers. He now heads 22V’s AI Macro Nexus Research.

AI is crypto’s smartphone moment

The Wall Street veteran’s broader bet is that AI agents will allow people to instruct software to execute trades and other financial transactions on their behalf.

“AI agents are effectively the same as the App Store or the smartphone for crypto,” he says.

In that scenario, users would direct their agents while the software handles execution. The growing use of those agents will drive more activity in tokenized assets and crypto payments, extending the investment opportunity beyond the companies supplying computing power.

But Visser’s crypto outlook still carries exposure to the AI trade he has grown more cautious about. He identifies a severe AI downturn that drags down equity markets as one threat to his bullish case.