Cryptocurrencies could deliver a better payoff from the artificial intelligence boom than AI stocks themselves, according to Jordi Visser, a three-decade Wall Street veteran and founder of Visser Labs.

Explosive gains in AI equities are becoming harder to repeat, Visser said during an appearance on Cointelegraph's Trade Secrets podcast. At the same time, he argued, AI agents are creating fresh demand for crypto payments and tokenized assets. His comments span both his concerns about the AI trade and his personal crypto allocations.

"Without AI, I don't think crypto would be going through this bull market," he said.

Acting on that thesis, Visser has expanded his own holdings beyond Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) into a broader basket of tokens.

His career includes stints as a managing director at Morgan Stanley and chief investment officer at Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers. He now heads 22V's AI Macro Nexus Research.

AI is crypto's smartphone moment

Visser's broader bet is that AI agents will allow people to instruct software to execute trades and other financial transactions on their behalf.

"AI agents are effectively the same as the App Store or the smartphone for crypto," he said.

In that scenario, users would direct their agents while the software handles execution. The growing use of those agents will drive more activity in tokenized assets and crypto payments, extending the investment opportunity beyond the companies supplying computing power.

Visser's crypto outlook still carries exposure to the AI trade he has grown more cautious about, however. He identified a severe AI downturn that drags down equity markets as one threat to his bullish case.

"I don't think that would end the bull market, but I definitely think it would retest the lows that we just saw," he said.

The AI "fireworks show" is over

Visser said he began reducing his exposure to memory chipmaker Micron in mid-May after concluding that hedge funds and retail investors had crowded into the AI trade.

"One of the reasons that Bitcoin and Ethereum were having such a hard time is because the focus was completely on AI," he said.

AI had offered investors potentially greener pastures backed by rising business revenue. In its quarterly report on April 29, Microsoft said its AI business was generating revenue at an annualized rate of $37 billion, more than double a year earlier. Micron, meanwhile, reported in March that its fiscal second-quarter revenue had nearly tripled to $23.86 billion.

According to Visser, AI investors now face a less forgiving market. The 100-stock AI portfolio he tracks is up about 40% this year, but it has become more volatile than Bitcoin on a rolling 126-day measure.

Financing concerns have since hit AI infrastructure, as building it costs more than companies generate from their existing businesses at present. Oracle, for example, spent $55.7 billion on capital expenditures in fiscal 2026 against $32 billion in operating cash flow and raised $43 billion in debt financing.

"I didn't say AI was over. AI fireworks show is over," Visser said.

He still sees several years of growth ahead in computing demand from AI agents, but he believes investors should temper their expectations for stock returns.

Visser widens his crypto bets

Until August, Visser's crypto holdings consisted solely of Bitcoin, Ether and Solana. Bitcoin remains his largest position, but he has since started to acquire a broader range of tokens.

Dogecoin (DOGE) is a clear signal he watches for returning retail enthusiasm, which he considers essential to sustaining a broader rally across the token market.

"They're the energy of the space and they're the ones that are going to fuel this as other people get involved," he said.

To track the broader market, Visser maintains an equally weighted index of 42 tokens and four publicly traded stocks. He said the index has outperformed Bitcoin since June and that he plans to hold all of its constituents.

Privacy is a theme he has already invested in.

"I'm not betting on one company, but I believe in privacy," Visser said.

He said AI will make privacy and identity protection more important as fraud and other forms of abuse grow, naming Zcash (ZEC) and Monero (XMR) among the projects that fit that investment thesis.