The Next Frontier of Value Creation: Oil, Bitcoin, and AI – A Century-Long Parallel
Macro Monday's Wealth Matters 3.0 issue on Bitcoin (BTC), AI, and the Next Quantum Leap in Financial Alpha.
“The further you look back in history the farther you can see ahead!” ~Chris J Snook paraphrasing Winston Churchill
In the last century, oil became the lifeblood of the global economy. What began as a single, valuable asset—crude oil—morphed into an industry that transformed the world, powering the rise of automobiles, planes, plastics, and a host of industries. None of those innovations would have been possible without harnessing and refining the hard asset of crude oil’s potential.
In the decades since, the trillions of dollars that flowed through the oil industry changed the geopolitical landscape, shaped foreign policy, and redefined how nations measured their wealth, national security, and power.
Today, we stand at the dawn of a similar transformation, but this time, it’s driven by two new assets: Bitcoin and artificial intelligence (AI). Just as oil created an entire industry around it, Bitcoin and AI (and their convergent force) are laying the foundations for ecosystems that could drive immense value creation over the next several decades.
But what parallels can we draw between these three epochs—oil, Bitcoin, and AI? More importantly, what lessons from the oil industry’s explosive growth and influence can be applied to predict the evolution of Bitcoin and AI?
Oil: The Asset That Powered a Century of Innovation
Oil, once simply a natural resource, became the most valuable commodity in the world. Its utility in powering industries from transportation to energy production was unmatched. The extraction, refining, and distribution of oil created a multi-trillion-dollar industry and fostered a network of economies and geopolitics that shaped the 20th century.
Key to oil’s influence was its network effect—its sheer ubiquity in all aspects of life and industry. Nations that controlled oil reserves became geopolitical powerhouses, and companies that mastered its extraction and distribution became titans.
NOTE: For a wonderful contextual read on the modern-day power of network effects and the potential that lies ahead I recommend and his book below (click to get the pdf for free)
The Ripple Effect of Oil
Read the tea leaves of what is coming now and next with these examples of what happened as the “industry” grew up around the asset of oil, are a great precursor to what has happened over the last 15 years of Bitcoin and the last 50 years of AI development now that both have hit a commercial global scale and are converging in both need and opportunity.
- Infrastructure: The oil industry required the creation of extensive infrastructure—refineries, pipelines, and global transportation networks.
- Industries: It fueled industries such as automobiles, aviation, plastics, and chemicals.
- Geopolitics: Oil-rich countries leveraged their reserves for power and influence, shaping global policies.
The result was a transformation of global economies, shifting power to those who controlled the asset. Now take a re-read of those last three bullets and replace “Oil” with “Bitcoin” and then again with “AI”.
Bitcoin: The Digital Oil of the 21st Century
If oil was the dominant asset of the 20th century, Bitcoin is fast becoming the digital asset that underpins the 21st century. Like oil, Bitcoin the commodity started as a niche asset with a few early adopters. However, its underlying requisite settlement layer technology, blockchain, has demonstrated a utility far beyond the creation of just a digital currency.
Bitcoin, like oil, has catalyzed an entirely new industry—which has been split into both the Bitcoin industry and the parallel alt-coin/cryptocurrency industry. Exchanges, wallets, decentralized finance (DeFi & BTCFi) applications, and Bitcoin mining operations are all part of this burgeoning sector. Furthermore, Bitcoin, like oil, is beginning to influence global power structures. Nations such as El Salvador and publicly traded corporations like Microstrategy have replaced their USD Treasury reserve asset holdings with Bitcoin on their balance sheets, while others view it as a hedge against traditional financial systems, inflation, national security, and financial sovereignty against the never-ending money printer and likely to grow capital controls.
Another mind-bending read for roles this asset can and will likely play is Jason Lowery’s MIT thesis and subsequent book Softwar, where he claims Bitcoin is the newest and ultimate power-projetion=-protocol with non-lethal effects.
Bitcoin’s Ripple Effect
- Digital Infrastructure: Bitcoin mining and blockchain networks are growing global infrastructure, just as refineries and pipelines did for oil.
- New Industries: Decentralized finance (DeFi & BTCFi), tokenization, and blockchain-powered applications are analogous to the industries that oil once fueled.
- Geopolitical Influence: Just as oil was a driver of global power, Bitcoin is giving rise to debates about monetary sovereignty and decentralized economies. Countries that embrace Bitcoin as part of their economic fabric could find themselves on the cutting edge of future global influence.
AI: Intelligence as The Asset of the Future
While Bitcoin has proven itself as the digital gold of our time and the potential global reserve asset of the near and distant future, AI represents the third paradigm shift in asset value creation. Like oil and Bitcoin, AI is both a singular asset and the bedrock for an industry with untold potential. AI’s asset is its ability to harness and process all of the world’s data to create insights, make predictions, automate decision-making and operating workflows, and accelerate the iterative feedback loops at fractions of the cost and time.
The AI industry is rapidly evolving, with companies developing models, tools, and applications that touch every sector of society, from healthcare to finance, energy to education. As AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous, we’re witnessing the creation of a new economic infrastructure built around this transformative technology that our linear human minds have trouble quantifying.
AI’s Ripple Effect
- Automation and Efficiency: AI is optimizing industries much like how oil mechanized production and energy. It's creating efficiencies in logistics, manufacturing, and even digital spaces like advertising and content creation. This is also where the convergence to both Bitcoin the currency and the real-time settlement layer is so fundamental. When bots, agents, and AI’s are transacting with other bots, agents, AIs, etc in millions of micro-transactions per second it is the token economy that only cryptocurrency rails like Bitcoin and several of its alt-coin blockchain network participants can support. The traditional and central bank throttled SWIFT system that operates only 20% of the calendar year with holidays, and holds, and 5-7 day settlement periods can’t and won’t support the AI centric economy with as much security, speed, and efficiency. When AI deepfakes make up more than 90% of the current state of the internet and are impossible for humans to discern the difference, only attestations and verifications and identity ownership at the edge via decentralized trust networks like Bitcoin can deliver us the internet of the next century.
- New Markets: AI is enabling new industries, from autonomous vehicles to predictive analytics, much like how oil fueled industries such as aviation and plastics.
- Geopolitical Shifts: Nations with AI prowess are poised to dominate in areas like defense, economics, and social governance. The strategic race for AI dominance is comparable to the oil-driven geopolitical shifts of the 20th century. AI is the arms race of the next decade in parallel with Quantum computing supremacy (another long post for another day haha).
The Convergence: Bitcoin, AI, and the New Oil
What makes this era different from the one powered by oil is that Bitcoin and AI are converging. The industries being built around both assets are intertwined, fueling a feedback loop of innovation and value creation and unlocking industries, jobs, and opportunities we haven’t even conceived of yet. The difference is this convergence and cycle will happen in fractions of the time that oil became the leading industry of the prior 100 years. We will be seeing all of this transformation within the next 7-10 years (by 2035) and then we may no longer be anything more than along for the ride.
- AI-powered Bitcoin Mining: Every leading miner is already leveraging AI to optimize Bitcoin mining operations, making them more efficient and environmentally sustainable.
- Blockchain and AI Integration: Blockchain’s transparency and security features could enhance AI decision-making by ensuring data integrity and traceability along with real-time micro-transactions between non-human customers.
- AI and Tokenized Economies: AI may play a role in forecasting and optimizing digital economies or even full-blown global nation-states in cyberspace powered by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Together, Bitcoin and AI are setting the stage for a new industrial revolution—one where value is increasingly decentralized, and industries become smarter, faster, and more efficient.
What Am I Doing About This Disruptive Wealth Shift?
At ATOMIQ, we’ve recognized this shift a decade ago and have been building our flywheel that will define the next wave of global industry leaders as this convergence unfolds. Our venture studio has set out to co-create and commercialize quantum-age companies at record speed, driven by the convergence of AI and blockchain technologies, with human-centered usability at the core.
But how does ATOMIQ’s flywheel model harness these forces to deliver outsized returns and build the iconic brands of tomorrow? Here’s how.
ATOMIQ’s Flywheel: An Intentional System of Placing Proven Entrepreneurs into Vehicles Leveraging the Technology Convergence
At the heart of ATOMIQ’s model is our ability to attract and empower proven entrepreneurs to lead commercial operations that leverage Bitcoin, AI, and quantum-age technologies into disruptive business model forces in established industries. Our venture studio is not just an incubator—it’s a launchpad that accelerates business viability by integrating these cutting-edge technologies into real-world solutions that deliver measurable value for the economic realities of today, while providing a turnkey sustainable business model advantage for the opportunity of tomorrow.
Here’s how our flywheel works:
1. Attract Proven Entrepreneurs
ATOMIQ is designed to draw in the best entrepreneurial talent—leaders who have a track record of successfully navigating complex markets and scaling businesses. We provide these entrepreneurs with the tools, frameworks, shared services, and resources they need to rapidly build commercial operations that are grounded in the real-world applications of foundational technologies like Bitcoin, Blockchain, and AI.
The convergence of these technologies is complex, but our entrepreneurs are industry thought leaders and proven operators in their chosen fields skilled at cutting through the noise to focus on scalable, human-centric solutions and have an appetite for maintaining their current cash cow while innovating and disrupting their business model or industry with the stars of tomorrow’s economy. They understand how to harness customers and employees around a bold vision and tangible brand, and we give them the ultimate platform, augmented team, and tools powered by AI to automate and optimize processes, while utilizing Bitcoin’s decentralized network to drive tokenize their RWAs (real-world assets) and settle transactions with transparency, security, and innovation.
2. Accelerate Market Viability Through Operational Efficiency
Time to market is critical in the digital age, especially when dealing with disruptive technologies. ATOMIQ’s venture studio has developed a system of operational efficiencies that rapidly de-risk new ventures. By streamlining development and go-to-market strategies, we reduce the typical obstacles that delay commercialization.
Our approach integrates the best practices of lean startup methodology, allowing teams to test, iterate, and refine their product-market fit with unprecedented speed. This ensures that businesses launched under ATOMIQ are not only viable but positioned for explosive growth.
With Bitcoin and AI converging at the core of many of these ventures, our teams are also focused on the operational synergies these technologies provide. For example, AI algorithms can optimize Bitcoin mining operations, while blockchain can bring transparency and security to AI-driven processes. This combination accelerates the deployment of market-ready solutions.
3. Commercialize Industry Applications with Human-Centric Usability
While the power of AI and Bitcoin lies in their technical sophistication, the real value is created when these technologies are applied in ways that are human-centric and user-friendly. ATOMIQ prioritizes the development of tools, platforms, and solutions that enhance human experiences, rather than replace them.
Our focus is on building applications that leverage the power of these foundational technologies and create a compound effect as we integrate them into a core stack of ATOMIQ CORE solutions that power each new commercial asset we co-found with an A-list entrepreneur.
Conclusion: The Next Decade of Value Creation
The comparison between oil, Bitcoin, and AI illustrates that we are on the cusp of a new frontier in value creation. While oil powered the last century of growth, Bitcoin and AI are driving the industries that will define the next 100 years.
Just as oil reshaped global economies and industries, Bitcoin and AI will create massive new opportunities, ushering in a more decentralized and automated future. For investors, innovators, and policymakers, understanding this shift is crucial. We are entering an era where assets are not just physical or even digital, but intelligent and capable of exponential growth, laying the foundation for unparalleled value creation.
Remember what I say “The Real Risk Is Doing Nothing!” Happy Monday. :)