The journalist Bitcoin.com Jamie Redman asked six popular AI chatbots about Bitcoin’s ability to become a global reserve currency.
The experiment involved OpenAI’s ChatGPT 3.5 and ChatGPT 4, Bard from Google, Claude Instant and Claude 4 from Anthropic, and Bing AI in Creative mode.
ChatGPT 3.5 struggled to assess Bitcoin’s and other digital assets’ potential, pointing to existing “problems and uncertainties”. In its view, the probability of achieving reserve-currency status depends on “current events and the evolution of the cryptocurrency ecosystem”.
Bard called for broader adoption of Bitcoin by central banks and other financial institutions, as well as greater price stability and improvements in blockchain technology.
“If Bitcoin can overcome these problems, it could become a global reserve asset within the next decade. However, it is also possible that this will never happen or that achieving this goal will take much longer,” the bot added.
Claude 4, based on ‘an analysis of Bitcoin’s properties and the current global financial system,’ assessed the probability of Bitcoin being recognized as a reserve currency as low to moderate over the next 10-15 years.
Claude Instant, citing ‘significant obstacles’ to Bitcoin in terms of stability and recognition, called such a development unlikely in the next 5-10 years.
ChatGPT 4 also stated that Bitcoin would require ‘several years or even decades’ to achieve reserve-currency status. The chatbot noted ‘volatility’, ‘regulatory requirements’, ‘competition from other assets’, and ‘technological risks’ of the first cryptocurrency.
Bing AI listed a number of factors on which Bitcoin’s future fate would depend, including:
- mass adoption of the asset, including by financial institutions;
- innovation and improvement of technology, scalability and usability;
- regulation and governance of the coin’s legal status, taxation and compliance with regulatory requirements;
- competition and interaction with other cryptoassets and fiat currencies.
Only Bard and Claude 4 provided a probability and possible timeframes. ChatGPT 3.5 noted that its information was based on data available up to September 2021. ChatGPT 4 also warned that “it cannot predict the future with certainty”.
In June, analytics firm Elliptic added support for the ChatGPT to a system for aggregating and analysing information from networks.