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Bitwise estimates crypto and AI could add $20 trillion to global GDP by 2030

The BlockThe Block2024/06/12 10:22
By:James Hunt

Crypto and AI could add a collective $20 trillion to global GDP by 2030, according to U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF issuer Bitwise.Mining firm diversification and blockchain-based verification protocols are among the use cases at the intersection of the two industries, analyst Juan Leon said.

The crypto and artificial intelligence industries could add a combined $20 trillion to global GDP by 2030, according to digital asset manager Bitwise.

“The intersection of AI and crypto is going to be even bigger than people imagine,” Bitwise Senior Crypto Research Analyst Juan Leon wrote in a Tuesday report .

One of the collaborative opportunities between the two industries is an emerging partnership between bitcoin miners and AI, Leon said.

The AI boom has seen chip producer Nvidia hit the headlines recently, reaching a $3 trillion market cap and becoming the third-largest company in the world behind just Microsoft and Apple, but the impact on data centers is less well known. The race for “AI supremacy” is creating an unprecedented shortage of data centers, AI chips and access to electricity, Leon said, with the world’s four largest cloud companies — Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft — expected to spend nearly $200 billion on new data centers next year alone.

However, with more than 80% of capacity under construction leased in advance, according to commercial real estate firm CBRE Group, data centers are struggling to meet demand.

While application-specific integrated circuits, the highly specialized chips designed specifically for bitcoin mining, are not suitable for AI purposes themselves, mining firms’ storage and cooling system infrastructure, plus their access to cheap power at scale, could present significant diversification opportunities. This infrastructure can help support AI’s insatiable appetite for vast computational resources and the extensive data centers required to store and process large volumes of information.

A case in point is AI cloud provider CoreWeave’s offer to acquire bitcoin miner Core Scientific for $1.6 billion last week — a 55% premium above its market price. That followed a 12-year, $3.5 billion partnership deal between the two firms, enabling CoreWeave to host its AI-related services in Core Scientific’s data centers.

“Our expanding relationship with CoreWeave creates a pathway for Core Scientific to diversify our business model and balance our portfolio between bitcoin mining and alternative compute hosting, positioning us to maximize cash flow and minimize risk while maintaining our significant exposure to bitcoin’s upside potential,” Core Scientific CEO Adam Sullivan said at the time.

Bitcoin mining companies, including Core Scientific, have been seeking to expand their revenues since April’s bitcoin halving , which reduced miners' block subsidy rewards by 50%. Other mining firms, such as Hut 8 and Iris Energy, have also pursued similar AI diversification initiatives in recent months.

Longer-term opportunities for crypto and AI

Beyond miner diversification, blockchain-based validation is another opportunity at the intersection of crypto and AI, Leon argued.

While AI tools have surged in popularity, risks associated with AI-generated content and “deep fakes” remain a concern. New projects are seeking to find a way to leverage the accessibility, transparency and immutability of decentralized public blockchains to counter abuses of AI, the analyst said.

Leon cited a startup called Attestiv as one example, creating digital “fingerprints” for videos based on their metadata, such as when and where they were recorded, and storing them on a public blockchain. If a video is suspected of being manipulated, platforms can check it against the fingerprint and let viewers know it’s been doctored, Leon said.

Another potential use case relates to virtual assistants, according to the Bitwise analyst. “Pairing AI assistants with smart contracts and digitally native money like bitcoin or stablecoins — which are designed to move securely without the slow oversight of centralized entities — could open up new avenues to further enhance our productivity,” Leon said.

Several other projects have sought to leverage the integration of AI and crypto in recent months. In April, Web3 infrastructure provider Ankr launched its AI-focused Layer 1 blockchain Neura on public testnet, supported by its native ANKR token, with a mainnet launch anticipated later this year.

In January, imgnAI closed a $1.6 million seed round led by Hack VC to support a "digital companion" launch. Bagel Network , a decentralized data platform aiming to support machine learning models, also recently raised $3.1 million in a pre-seed round led by CoinFund.


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Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.

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