Juan Leon, a senior crypto research analyst at Bitwise, thinks the dual demand for AI and crypto will impact the global economy more than the public predicts.
Any observer of the crypto industry or Wall Street has likely noticed that artificial intelligence (AI) technology has slowly (or not so slowly, as seen in the case of Nvidia) made its way into mainstream conversations.
One of these mainstream discussions took place at Consensus 2024, where Juan Leon noted that the intersection of AI and crypto will have an even bigger impact on the global GDP than projected.
PwC predicts that AI and crypto could contribute $15.7 trillion and $1.8 trillion to the global economy by 2030. However, Leon writes, “While that adds up to $17.5 trillion, I would not be surprised to see their synergies have a compounding effect that could drive the combined value to $20 trillion or beyond.”
Leon believes the two industries could collectively add $20 trillion to the global GDP by 2030 due to data center scarcity and blockchain entrepreneurship.
Datacenter scarcity
The AI gold rush is creating a growing need for data centers, electricity, and AI chips — which is where Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies and their technology come into play. The world’s four largest cloud companies (Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft) are expected to spend nearly $200 billion on data center build-outs in 2025 alone to meet the growing demand for AI services.
The demand for data centers is increasing, with about 83% of the capacity under construction already being leased in advance. As commercial real estate firm CBRE Group reported in March, AI companies and cloud service providers drive the demand. Data centers need help to keep up with the growing AI boom.
Bitcoin miners have the resources that AI companies need, such as powerful chips and state-of-the-art cooling systems, which has led to an increase in AI companies bidding for crypto data centers.
For example, a Russian crypto mining equipment supplier, Intelion, is planning to invest over $130 million to develop AI data centers.
Furthermore, Bitcoin mining group Core Scientific Inc. rejected an unsolicited $1 billion takeover offer from AI startup CoreWeave Inc. All this attention benefits miners and the larger Bitcoin ecosystem by providing new revenue and supporting network security.
Blockchain entrepreneurship
Crypto blockchains are accessible, public, and immutable, making them ideal for countering AI abuses. Entrepreneurs are creating methods and businesses to use this technology to combat the most harmful potential uses of AI. For example, some companies use the blockchain to create digital fingerprints for videos, ensuring their authenticity by detecting manipulations.
Crypto and AI also intersect in virtual assistants like Siri or Alexa. AI combined with smart contracts and digital currencies like Bitcoin can enhance bots’ capabilities and improve productivity.
“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,” writes Leon.
These technologies can validate everything from research to government communications, highlighting blockchain’s role in AI oversight — and vice versa.
