OpenAI worries: could an AI crash spark a crypto crash too?

This week, a revelation by the Financial Times caused a stir in the technology sector. According to the newspaper, OpenAI’s annual revenue, calculated on the basis of current income on an annualised basis, could be around $20 billion lower than previously assumed. That raises questions not only about the future of artificial intelligence, but also about the potential impact on other risk assets, crypto among them.

Because OpenAI is a private company, it remains difficult to establish exactly what is going on behind the scenes. The Financial Times report is based on internal documents that were presented to investors at the end of September. These show that OpenAI now expects revenue heading towards $50 billion. That is considerably less than the $70 billion that was doing the rounds in the market for months.

Spectacular

Notably, that higher estimate also came from leaked investor documents. At the time, OpenAI did not rush to deny those figures, which led many investors to assume that demand for AI solutions would continue to grow explosively. Now it appears that the reality may be a good deal less spectacular.

For investors, that is an important signal. In recent months, enormous amounts of capital flowed into AI companies, at the expense of other sectors. The crypto market felt that shift too. Many investors sold crypto assets in order to buy into the AI boom, which was seen as the next great technological revolution.

Pressure

But what happens if that AI hype cools? In a negative scenario, investors would not only sell AI shares, but scale back their exposure to risk assets in general. That could put pressure on both technology stocks and cryptocurrencies. At the same time, a cooling AI market could also prompt part of that capital to go looking for alternatives once again, such as Bitcoin and other digital assets.

Whether AI ultimately turns out to be a competitor or rather a catalyst for crypto will become clearer in the coming months. For now, one thing seems certain: when confidence in AI starts to show cracks, the entire financial market is watching.