AI Kills Jobs, Crypto Eats Payments: Citrini Research’s 2028 Scenario

Thematic equity and global macro analysis company Citrini Research has published a new post imagining the world of 2028 that sketches an economy transformed by artificial intelligence.

In Citrini’s version of near-future history, AI finally delivers on its productivity promise, as companies cut staff, profits surge and stocks roar. The post is framed as a macro memo from June 2028 and has been shared widely on X.

In Citrini’s scenario, equity markets initially celebrate the efficiency shock. The S&P 500 “flirted with 8000,” and the Nasdaq “broke above 30k,” as investors celebrated a new era of productivity. 

But the mood shifts as laid-off workers stop spending, consumer demand collapses, and companies turn to more AI tools to defend profits. That triggers more layoffs and even weaker demand, becoming a self-reinforcing loop that squeezes the economy’s human core.

Negative feedback loop with no natural brake

In the future fictional US economy, the top 10% of earners drive more than half of all consumer spending. Product managers and analysts, once making $180,000 a year, are replaced by software.

Citrini calls the result “ghost GDP.” Output surges on paper while wages crumble in reality. Productivity data looks dazzling, yet restaurants and retail chains quietly wither in an economy that grows without paying anyone.

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The breaking point comes in housing, where roughly $13 trillion in mortgages hinge on the assumption of steady employment.

In 2008, the authors point out, loans were “bad on day one.” In 2028, they were perfectly fine until the world changed, joblessness spiked at 10.2%, and the S&P shed 40% to 60% from its peak. But markets barely flinch, as machine-driven liquidity masks human distress.

AI pushes payments onto crypto rails

Crypto investors are paying attention to where this leaves the world of payments, and what it implies for demand for stablecoins and other crypto assets as a default settlement for AI agents.

In Citrini’s view, autonomous AI agents don’t care about brands, only latency, cost and how easily they can be programmed. 

They route around card networks like Visa and Mastercard’s 2%-3% interchange fees and geographic frictions, and begin settling in stablecoins over cheap, high‑throughput chains like Solana and Ethereum.

As labor costs vanish, the gains flow to the owners of compute, as their AI systems quietly shift more commerce onto crypto rails and away from traditional processors, a move that decimates the card networks’ interchange‑driven business model.

Wealth inequality widens, asset owners thrive

Bitwise adviser Jeff Park captured the paradox, pointing out that “wealth inequality widens to unseen levels,” and ownership of assets becomes “more powerful than labor as AI reduces the latter to zero. Bitcoin breaks through $1 million.”

Perhaps the most unsettling part of the post is the timestamp. This isn’t written in 2028; it’s Feb. 2026.

As layoffs rise, spending slows and crypto rails swell with new settlement flows, every domino described by Citrini already seems to be in motion.

As crypto trader and AI advocate Miles Deutscher mused, “I’ve never been more bullish on AI. And I’ve never been more terrified of what that means.” 

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