In his recent predictions about crypto, Binance’s founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao urged everyone to invest in crypto sooner rather than later in order to “hedge” against an economic landscape that he believes AI could and would destroy millions of jobs through automation. In addition to commenting against joblessness in the future, in CZ’s opinion, crypto is the foundational platform and essential economic infrastructure for the already AI-driven world.
The Dual Argument: Personal Hedge and Systemic Infrastructure
CZ presents a two-fold argument in his thinking regarding crypto. At the personal level, his message is blunt: “AI will make you jobless. Crypto will make you not need a job,” because you will have the ability to generate capital growth and be able to retire comfortably, as opposed to working a traditional, regular (salaried) job, which is at risk of being replaced by AI in the near future.
At a larger, systemic or macroeconomic level, CZ believes that as AI development continues, there will be an increase in the demand for AI agents that will have the ability to autonomously transact between themselves using “programmable money” (i.e., crypto). CZ believes that the current bank-based payment systems will not be adequate to support the hundreds of thousands of autonomous, AI-driving business-to-business (B2B) transactions expected to occur within the next few years. Therefore, in his opinion, crypto will ultimately be the only viable economic settlement infrastructure for AI-based businesses/industries, thus ensuring its long-term utility and value.
Reality Check: Risk vs. Hype
Despite the boldness of CZ’s “not financial advice,” many are skeptical about how to include/use crypto in their retirement plans or even in their everyday lives. Many who are sceptical base their opinions on the extreme volatility of crypto, with many altcoins still down around 80% since their 2021 highs.
Obviously, CZ’s post brought lots of attention and reactions in the community, from positive and supportive feedback to the funniest replies from some X users. Some of those are:
Additionally, on previous occasions, CZ has publicly voiced his criticism of the current AI and Crypto project space, where he asserted that, “99.99% of them are useless” or just tokens with no real utility. This creates a paradox: he champions crypto’s AI role in the future while dismissing most current attempts to build it. To this point, the Binance founder’s commentary serves as both a rallying cry and a cautionary filter that pushes the narrative beyond just hype toward tangible integration where AI agents actually use tokens for meaningful tasks.
