Thematic equity and global macro analysis firm Citrini Research has published a speculative memo imagining the world of 2028, sketching an economy radically transformed by artificial intelligence. The post, framed as a macro memo from June 2028, has been widely shared on social media platform X.
In Citrini's scenario, AI delivers on its long-promised productivity gains, leading to widespread corporate staff cuts, surging profits, and a roaring stock market. Initially, equity markets celebrate this "efficiency shock," with the S&P 500 flirting with 8000 and the Nasdaq breaking above 30,000. However, the mood shifts as laid-off workers stop spending, causing consumer demand to collapse. Companies respond by deploying more AI tools to defend profits, triggering further layoffs and creating a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop that squeezes the human core of the economy.
Citrini describes a future where the top 10% of earners drive over half of all consumer spending, while middle-class jobs like product managers and analysts are replaced by software. This creates a "ghost GDP"—output surges on paper while real wages crumble. The breaking point arrives in the housing market, where roughly $13 trillion in mortgages depend on steady employment. Unlike the 2008 crisis where loans were "bad on day one," in this 2028 scenario, loans are fine until joblessness spikes to 10.2%, causing the S&P to shed 40-60% from its peak. Market liquidity, driven by machines, masks the underlying human distress.
The analysis highlights a significant shift for the crypto industry. As autonomous AI agents become dominant economic actors, they prioritize transaction latency, cost, and programmability over brand loyalty. Citrini posits that these agents will route around traditional card networks like Visa and Mastercard—avoiding their 2-3% interchange fees and geographic frictions—and begin settling transactions in stablecoins on cheap, high-throughput blockchains like Solana and Ethereum. This "agentic commerce" would fundamentally change payment rails, decimating the traditional card networks' business model as the gains from vanished labor costs flow to the owners of compute power.
The memo, shared in February 2026, notes that the early dominos of this scenario—rising layoffs and slowing consumer spending—already appear to be in motion. Bitwise advisor Jeff Park captured the central paradox, stating that "wealth inequality widens to unseen levels," and ownership of assets becomes "more powerful than labor as AI reduces the latter to zero." The memo concludes with a striking prediction: "Bitcoin breaks through $1 million."
Crypto trader and AI advocate Miles Deutscher reacted to the post, musing, "I've never been more bullish on AI. And I've never been more terrified of what that means."
