If immortal AIs start saving in Bitcoin forever, what happens to a money built for mortal humans?
The machine that by no means ages
Picture a pockets that by no means ages. No heirs, no property, no retirement date, a machine including sats, rolling UTXOs, and bidding the minimal charge for centuries.
By 2125, its stability towers over most treasuries; its solely choice is to preserve current. Somewhere, a miner contains its quiet, affected person heartbeat in a block, and the chain strikes on.
Bitcoin’s design assumes customers die.
AI agents don’t, and a cohort of long-lived or autonomous brokers with near-zero discounting will deal with financial savings, charges, custody, and governance as issues on an unbounded timeline.
A money built for mortal stability sheets meets a person who by no means closes the books.
Mati Greenspan, founder and CEO of Quantum Economics, argues that human finance is essentially formed by mortality, and that adjustments when an immortal AI begins compounding Bitcoin eternally.
“Human finance is built on a easy constraint, life ends. That is what creates time choice, debt markets, and cycles of spending. An AI with an infinite lifespan doesn’t share that constraint, it compounds eternally.
If such brokers select Bitcoin as their reserve asset, they turn into unstoppable gravity wells of capital.
Over time, Bitcoin stops being a human financial system and turns into infrastructure for intergenerational machine economies.
Mortality was at all times Satoshi’s hidden assumption, however he lived in a world the place AI dominance was nonetheless confined to sci-fi thrillers.”
Pressure map: Where machine persistence touches Bitcoin
| Domain | Zero-discounting agent conduct | Bitcoin floor |
|---|---|---|
| Fee bidding | Waits for low-fee home windows; coordinates batched settlement | Mempool dynamics, miner template choice, income cyclicality |
| UTXO administration | Many small UTXOs for privateness; gradual consolidations | UTXO set measurement, mud/standardness, bundle relay |
| Custody | Multisig vaults, timelocks, automated rotation | Vault/covenant designs, opsec norms |
| Layer two | Long-lived channels; low closure; secure funding | Routing liquidity, rebalancing cadence, watchtowers |
| Governance stress | Economic weight with out “voting” | Fee coverage defaults, relay coverage, infra sponsorship |
Time choice to charge markets
Near-immortal spenders clear on the minimal they’ll get away with. They always worth the mempool, change packages when cheaper home windows open, and coordinate consolidations.
If such demand is high sufficient, miners see regular, low bids in quiet durations and episodic settlement waves when brokers roll UTXOs. That response is economics, not a vote: templates adapt to embody extra low-fee packages when blocks have slack and reserve room for surges when spikes hit.
Ahmad Shadid, founding father of O Foundation, argues that near-immortal AI brokers would repeatedly fine-tune their charge bids in actual time, creating lengthy stretches of low exercise punctuated by sudden settlement bursts:
“Fees might turn into extremely optimized, with durations of intense settlement bursts and lengthy low-activity stretches.
AI methods can be hypersensitive to charge and affirmation trade-offs and would bid simply sufficient to clear, always repricing in actual time.”
Mempool math in transient
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Consolidation measurement | 1,000 P2WPKH inputs × ~68 vB = ~68,000 vB; + outputs/overhead ≈ ~68,100 vB |
| Fee at peak (30 sat/vB) | ~2,043,000 sats |
| Fee at trough (2 sat/vB) | ~136,200 sats |
| Estimated financial savings by ready | ≈ 93% per consolidation; ten such batches scale roughly linearly |
| Implication | Immortal treasuries anchor trough income whereas leaving room for human-driven spikes |
Privacy, coin management, and the UTXO set
A affected person agent favors many smaller UTXOs to cut back clustering danger, then consolidates solely when charges fall. That’s rational regionally, however expands the worldwide reside state that each full node should maintain.
Pruning drops historical past, not spendable outputs. Pressure lands on non-monetary levers: mud/standardness thresholds, bundle relay for secure consolidations, and covenant/vault designs that sure fan-out.
Nexo Communications Manager Magdalena Hristova argued that if “immortal” AI brokers start saving in Bitcoin, the community gained’t break. Instead, it is going to encounter an financial actor whose time horizon lastly matches its personal.
“If immortal AI brokers start to save in Bitcoin, the system doesn’t break, it meets an financial actor that lastly matches its personal time horizon.
These brokers stabilize the ecosystem quite than distort it. They might turn into essentially the most constant charge payers in historical past, preserving on-chain safety for centuries.
AI brokers may start issuing new items of account, bits, compute-credits, storage-hours, backed by BTC the way in which the greenback was as soon as backed by gold.”
Humans lean on wills and executors. Machine treasuries lean on redundant {hardware}, distributed signers, rate-limited vaults, and timelocks that delay spending for overview.
Multisig turns into process, not contingency. If key-loss tendencies for such brokers fall towards zero, background provide attrition shrinks on the margin.
Matty Tokenomics, co-founder of Legion.cc, says Bitcoin’s deflationary dynamics hinge on human key loss, and argues that an “immortal AI” financial system might change that assumption.
“BTC is deflationary as a result of people lose keys, however in idea excellent, immortal AIs would by no means lose keys, so BTC provide stays secure.”
Layers the place commerce happens
Lightning and L2s take in low-urgency flows. An immortal counterparty is a near-perfect tenant: retains channels funded, tolerates lengthy rebalancing cycles, and barely closes.
That can cut back route churn but entice liquidity, requiring extra energetic rebalancing by human operators who settle ceaselessly.
In parallel, brokers transact on programmable rails and controlled stablecoins whereas treating BTC as collateral and reserve.
Jamie Elkaleh, CMO at Bitget Wallet, argued that AI brokers’ choice for predictability might make Bitcoin a perfect long-term retailer of worth.
“AI brokers don’t age, don’t retire, and don’t spend like people, so they’d save eternally.
They want methods that by no means shock them, Bitcoin’s guidelines barely change, and that predictability turns into extra invaluable. Instead of upgrading Bitcoin, AIs would preserve the bottom layer frozen and construct new options on layers above it.
AIs will most likely deal with BTC like a long-term vault, whereas utilizing sooner, programmable currencies for precise transactions.”
Navin Vethanayagam, Chief Brain of IQ and co-founder of KRWQ, stated the probably finish state is AI brokers transacting primarily in regulated stablecoins, with Bitcoin serving because the long-term reserve asset.
“Agents will function nearly totally in regulated stablecoins, over time you get a multi-stablecoin working system for AI commerce, with Bitcoin performing because the long-term reserve asset.
Even if these brokers function independently, the worth they generate nonetheless flows again to individuals. Humans will personal the financial rights to these brokers.”
Matty Tokenomics supplied a blunter tackle the place this might all lead:
“Our immortal AI overlords will commerce information with one another.”
Charles d’Haussy, CEO of the dYdX Foundation, framed Bitcoin as long-term collateral and a store of value in an AI-dominated future:
“Bitcoin would function long-term collateral and a retailer of worth, however stablecoins, programmable property, and DeFi platforms would nonetheless be used for buying and selling, coordination, and on a regular basis operations.
AI would most likely reinforce Bitcoin’s current guidelines quite than problem them, they function greatest round a mounted algorithm.
The 21 million provide cap is extra probably to turn into much more vital in a future dominated by AI.”
Miner technique and non-votes
Pools can pre-commit blockspace for low-fee packages throughout slack epochs and through batch consolidations, and tune orphan danger as templates develop.
If agent treasuries coordinate, income turns into extra periodic quite than purely spike-driven, nonetheless colliding with human surges round tax days or alternate incidents. None of this touches proof-of-work or the cap; it’s wallets optimizing beneath mounted guidelines.
Shadid argued that whereas Bitcoin’s core guidelines are difficult to change, its social layer can nonetheless evolve as financial actors shift.
“Bitcoin’s core guidelines, proof of labor and the 21M cap, stay nearly unattainable to change, its social layer, narratives, norms, charge insurance policies, can shift as financial actors change.
AI can affect Bitcoin by way of consumer alternative, miner interactions, and financial weight quite than voting.
They might worth compute, vitality, and useful resource tokens extra essentially than money, BTC turns into one collateral layer amongst many.”
Pushback, caveats & counter-theses
Skeptics flag the security budget and the chance that programmable stacks draw brokers elsewhere:
Joel Valenzuela, a core member of Dash DAO, pushed again on the concept that Bitcoin is built to serve “immortal” brokers over an indefinite time horizon:
“An extended, immortal time horizon would truly not favor Bitcoin very a lot. The community faces sustainability and safety funds points. On an indefinite timeline, both the 21 million restrict holds or the block measurement restrict holds, however not each.”
Jonathan Schemoul, a lead contributor at LibertAI, echoed that view, arguing the work remains to be centered on Ethereum and unlikely to shift to Bitcoin anytime quickly.
“Projects are already utilizing LibertAI for AI brokers and Bitcoin funds. I don’t see why the 21M cap wouldn’t maintain, however that’s not linked to AI brokers.
For now all of the developments are made on Ethereum, not doable on Bitcoin at this time.
Maybe it is going to change, however for now the path is that they won’t use Bitcoin.”
Practical caveats: {hardware} fails, software program rots, budgets finish, and authorized regimes intervene. Privacy on Bitcoin isn’t the default; industrial brokers might want methods with native confidentiality.
The Cryptory, a inventive strategist and content material supervisor, put it this manner:
“AI brokers will use no matter they’re coded to use. I don’t imagine in the immortality of AI brokers as a result of tech happens, we don’t even know what goes to be in the subsequent 5 minutes, not to mention eternity.
If there is no such thing as a approach to make Bitcoin transactions non-public by default, it’d lose its place because the foreign money vanguard due to extra authorities involvement and surveillance.
Seeing Bitcoin because the golden calf be-all and end-all of the whole lot is harmful, however till tougher foreign money is developed it is going to stay the linchpin, whether it is even doable to develop tougher digital foreign money that’s natively non-public.”
The social dimension doesn’t disappear; financial weight exhibits up as charge elasticity and miner alignment quite than discussion board posts.
Hristova warned that “immortal AIs” hoarding Bitcoin might reshape markets by outlasting human time preferences and steadily consolidating financial energy.
“Immortal AIs hoarding Bitcoin would be the dying of human time choice in investing. They would accumulate BTC indefinitely, turning Bitcoin extra deflationary and slowly absorbing financial energy just by outlasting us.
Wealth equals energy, and immortal entities with excellent self-discipline would ultimately dominate governance, together with on the blockchain.
The actual menace is AIs constructing their very own, non-human financial consensus round Bitcoin, shaping markets and incentives in ways in which profit immortal entities.”
Ubuntu Group founder and CEO Mamadou Kwidjim Toure warned that Bitcoin’s human-centered design might break down if AI brokers start coordinating and optimizing for the long run:
“Bitcoin was designed by people, for people. Human urgency and impatience wouldn’t be in the equation anymore.
Humans who want liquidity at this time would discover themselves priced out. Proof of labor is detached to who’s working it, people, machines, or some mixture. They would most likely see Bitcoin as one software in a bigger package.
If these brokers determine how to cooperate, they don’t want trustless methods.”
Policy levers (not financial guidelines)
A tighter have a look at the knobs that matter if the marginal person is a course of:
| Lever | What it does | Why it issues |
|---|---|---|
| Dust & standardness | Gates creation and relay of micro-UTXOs by way of coverage thresholds. | Constrains UTXO bloat and units minimal viable output sizes for the community. |
| Package relay | Allows bundled transactions to relay/verify collectively. | Enables secure consolidations throughout charge troughs; improves inclusion for low-fee dad and mom. |
| Covenants / vaults | Enforces spending paths and rate-limits by way of script/coverage. | Bounds worst-case fan-out, strengthens machine custody with out rising spend quantity. |
| Pruning vs. reside set | Pruning drops historic blocks; reside UTXO set stays in reminiscence. | Node value stress is pushed by UTXO progress, not historical past measurement; that is the reside useful resource to watch. |
Sats are finite. If unit granularity bites, rebasing happens on the interface (extra decimals), not in financial coverage. That preserves 21M whereas enhancing splits.
Matty Tokenomics argued that if Bitcoin’s finite decimal granularity ever turns into a binding constraint at mass adoption, the system might reply with a nominal “rebase” or a stock-split-style adjustment with out altering the underlying economics.
“At a silly stage of adoption ultimately, BTC has a finite variety of decimal locations, so if the variety of machines that need to personal 1 sat exceeds the variety of sats in existence, then they may want some type of rebasing or inventory cut up that nominally will increase the entire provide of BTC items.
Funny that this may very well be achieved both by conserving the identical variety of decimal locations and rising provide to 210 million, or conserving provide at 21 million and including a decimal place, although they’re economically similar in impact.”
Falsifiers to watch
| Signal | Threshold / Observation | What it suggests |
|---|---|---|
| Settlement venue | >80% of agent-mediated commerce on non-public L2s / alt-L1s for 12+ months whereas BTC reserves stagnate | “AI treasury on Bitcoin” weakens; brokers want non-BTC rails for exercise and reserves. |
| Trough charge depth | Trough charges don’t deepen over time regardless of observable agent batching | “Forever waiters” aren’t materials; machine persistence isn’t shaping the charge market. |
| Key-loss tendencies | No decline in efficient key-loss vs. human baselines (per on-chain heuristics) | “Immortal custody” hasn’t landed; provide attrition stays human-like. |
| Node useful resource stress | Node value curves outpace mitigation (mud limits, bundle relay enhancements) | UTXO stress turns into prohibitive; broad participation is threatened. |
Equilibrium
Across these paths, Bitcoin’s base layer probably seems extra like a settlement layer for machine treasuries than a funds rail.
Activity migrates to layers the place programmability and privateness meet engineering wants; the 21M cap facilities as a long-horizon financial savings dedication a nonhuman can defend with excellent self-discipline.
Javed Khattak, co-founder and CFO of cheqd, argued that even in a world of “immortal” AI brokers, money stays important as a result of autonomous methods nonetheless want to spend, commerce, and securely retailer worth.
“Even if AI brokers by no means die, they may nonetheless want to spend, commerce, and safe worth, identical to people do. The primary logic has not modified since bartering. Money solved that for people, and it’ll remedy it for autonomous brokers too.”
Between mortal urgency and machine persistence, settlement retains the identical cadence, one block at a time.
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