Conversation with Bitwise Advisor: From K-shaped economy to AI taking jobs, how can Bitcoin save young people?

Source: “When Shift Happens” Podcast

整理：Felix, PANews

Bitwise Advisor Jeff Park is a macro strategist and former Chief Investment Officer at ProCap Financial. Recently, he analyzed on a podcast why real estate is actually a depreciating asset, why Bitcoin is the ultimate safe haven, and how AI will trigger a wave of Bitcoin adoption. Jeff Park believes that for young people, from the unreachable housing prices to AI replacing an entire generation’s jobs, the financial system has already completely collapsed.

PANews has summarized the highlights of the conversation.

Host: You told me before that you were exposed to the concept of “currency devaluation” very early. Can you tell me more about these?

Jeff Park: Of course. I grew up in both the US and Korea. In elementary school in Korea, I experienced the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. That crisis left a deep impression on me as a second or third grader because I saw a country demonstrating absolute unity when it couldn’t control its own destiny. When you see people upstairs and downstairs, on the streets and alleys, all tightly bound by a patriotism directly related to the value of the sovereign currency, that feeling is very strange. The most relatable event for Americans might be “9/11,” which united people across political lines and social classes to reflect on “what America is.” In Korea, the full devaluation of the currency also played a role in uniting the nation. I vividly remember the Korean government calling on citizens to donate gold to restore the national treasury to repay IMF (International Monetary Fund) rescue loans, because those loan terms were extremely harsh. In emerging markets like Korea, the IMF is seen as highly political, which perhaps also influenced my involvement in crypto 20 years later.

Host: You just mentioned that your early experience with currency devaluation brought people together. But that was in Asia. Now in the US. What’s happening in America today? Can people really unite?

Jeff Park: I think America’s greatest strength is also its biggest weakness—that is, its diversity. Asian commentators often predict that “diversity will destroy America.” In Korea, achieving national cohesion is easy because everyone is Korean, connected by a shared history of resisting colonial oppression. But in the US, it’s hard to find an obvious bond that can inspire sacrifice across society. Sacrifice is the key word. For example, in Korea, all men, regardless of class or education, must serve in the military, creating a homogeneous social norm among men. But in America, it’s hard to find a typical “American experience” that unites everyone. Politics often draw lines between left and right, upper and lower classes, young and old, but I think these are just distractions. What’s truly lacking and needs to be cherished is the sense of national identity and unity among the younger generation.

Host: You entered the workforce just before the 2008 crisis, followed by years of accelerated money printing. Now we live in New York, the world financial center, where everything is ridiculously expensive. I’m Swiss, living in Singapore, so I’m used to high prices, but coming here still feels unbelievable. How do ordinary people survive? People have clearly felt the inflation over these years—what exactly is happening?

Jeff Park: Yes, what we’re seeing is a completely out-of-control, collapsing financial system. The lower classes are experiencing a “K-shaped economy.” A “K-shaped economy” means some people are enjoying economic prosperity from asset inflation, while others are in recession, unable to find jobs, with widening wealth gaps. It’s a double-track economy.

In New York, you can see this clearly through real estate. Over the past 10 years, the average home price in New York City has actually stagnated. The “super luxury” homes as stores of value are selling very well. They’re not for living in but are bought by the wealthy to preserve wealth on their balance sheets. If you bought a top-floor apartment worth $20 million seven years ago, it might now sell for $30 million. But if you bought a regular home for real living, supporting a family and contributing to the local economy, prices are actually falling or flat. For example, New York has a “luxury home tax” on properties over $1 million. Decades ago, $1 million could buy a mansion, but now in New York, it only buys a studio apartment. The government deliberately doesn’t index this tax to inflation, so they can collect more taxes. New York is a paradox, and all of this is a symptom caused by the lack of high-quality, value-preserving assets.

Host: Why has real estate become like this?

Jeff Park: Land is inherently scarce. The US enjoys the absolute privilege of running the global financial system; the dollar is the largest export product. But this comes at a cost—offshore funds must eventually flow back and be invested in US assets to sustain the trade deficit. This creates a artificially inflated, bubble-like market for US assets, where overseas investors just need a place to park their capital. The serious problem is that the market’s pricing motivation has nothing to do with people living and working in New York who want to settle down.

Host: For someone aged 30 to 35 who has saved some money, how should they invest? I think $1 million is a lot, but in New York, it can only buy an apartment, and you tell me that buying a $20 million top-floor apartment is a good investment. How should our generation view the idea of “buying a house as an investment” like the previous generation?

Jeff Park: The rise in real estate prices isn’t because the physical value of houses has increased, but because the dollar is constantly devaluing. If you think carefully, real estate is an asset that requires ongoing maintenance. Stones weather, you pay property taxes, mortgage interest, maintenance fees, and home insurance. Houses are actually depreciating assets, and US tax law even allows real estate investors to depreciate over 20 to 30 years. People treat buying a house as a main savings method because it’s tightly linked to social functions—like paying high property taxes to qualify for public schools for your kids. Currently, real estate faces two major issues: liquidity transformation and demographic shifts. Do you know that the average age of Americans applying for mortgages today is 59? That’s clearly not first-time homebuyers but people in their sixties buying their third or fourth property. This directly squeezes out young people in their 20s who want to buy their first home and start a family. Their path to family life is basically blocked. Also, when New Yorkers move to Texas’s Austin due to high taxes, locals in Austin are angry because their housing prices are driven up by New York capital. It’s a capital control problem—young people are completely pushed out of the market.

Host: As a rational man in his 30s, I have a job, a girlfriend, and plan to get married and have children. I need a house. But you tell me buying a house is even a bad investment. I only have $100k or $50,000 in savings. What should I do?

Jeff Park: Honestly, in a core city like New York, renting is definitely more cost-effective. When you own a house, all the taxes, property fees, and insurance eat into your capital return, leaving you with less than 2%, or even less than 1%. You might as well put that money into a money market fund earning 3.5% risk-free. Buying a house is basically betting that prices will go up. So, for young people without children, renting is the most economically sound choice. But once you have children, you need stability, you need to send your kids to school, and you’ll have to pay a high “premium” for peace of mind. This is no longer just a financial decision. That’s also why many young people today are reluctant to have children—because once they have kids, they can’t keep renting, and the cycle is broken, creating enormous pressure. In Asia, like Japan and Korea, it’s common for young people to wait for the older generation to pass away and transfer wealth. But as the older generation’s lifespan extends, this time gap causes huge social friction between generations.

Host: Do we have to hopelessly wait until 60, hoping our parents leave us some property? Is there any other way out?

Jeff Park: Yes. There’s now a better way to preserve wealth than real estate. This wealth doesn’t require servicing, space, maintenance, or taxes. It’s Bitcoin. Bitcoin will directly ease the pressure on the real estate market. The wealthy who ran to buy a $40 million penthouse in New York to transfer $50 million can now buy Bitcoin directly. You don’t need to pay huge maintenance fees every year, nor worry about government expropriation. Once this value-preserving hot money stops flowing into real estate, demand curves will reset, and prices will fall, making homes affordable for young people. Although short-term declines in real estate prices will be painful, overall it’s a win-win for society. That’s why Michael Saylor calls Bitcoin “digital real estate,” just like Manhattan land 100 years ago. Capital naturally gravitates toward high-efficiency places; if you don’t give it an outlet, society will eventually collapse.

Host: You mentioned in an article about “smart investors”—what are “smart investors”? Why have they declined?

Jeff Park: “Smart investors” refer to value investors like Warren Buffett or Benjamin Graham, who look for stocks that are extremely cheap relative to cash flow and have low P/E ratios. But I think that era is over. Because the best-performing assets now aren’t “cheap,” but those with “scarcity” and perceived extra value. The entire framework of “smart investors” is based on the assumption that everything must be priced according to the “risk-free rate” (i.e., US Treasuries). But as the US government’s creditworthiness is challenged, the foundation of the risk-free rate is shaken. That’s why traditional 60/40 (stocks/bonds) portfolios are failing, and the correlation between US bonds and US stocks is increasing. Once you remove the valuation anchor of the risk-free rate, the market turns into chaos.

Host: So what is “ideological investing”?

Jeff Park: Traditional value investors try to hedge geopolitical, AI, and cultural impacts to find so-called intrinsic value. But “ideological investors” embrace the challenge—they spend a lot of time predicting the future, focusing on capital flows and paradigm shifts in liquidity. They understand that the US government is actively buying assets, so they buy what the “White House Asset Management Company” would buy. They are good at identifying asset manipulation and avoiding traditional valuation traps.

Host: That sounds like what Wall Street CIOs do. Can you explain it in a way that ordinary people can understand?

Jeff Park: Actually, grandma is very good at this. She knows that the truly valuable things aren’t the Apple stocks in her brokerage account; the most valuable assets might be physical—like her unique jewelry or her Hermès bag (which has outperformed the S&P 500 for 20 years). Or some great artworks. These things, traditionally not called financial assets, are the real tools for wealth diversification.

Your financial advisor will only teach you to buy 60/40 stocks and bonds, private equity, or venture capital, but they’re all basically the same—they’re subject to the same “global arbitrage” and risk-free rate. What you need is assets from another pool—things that macro cycles can never reach, which are truly uncorrelated for diversification. Cryptocurrencies, gold, Hermès bags, limited-edition sneakers, Pokémon cards—all belong to this category. I also believe that in the future, “tokenized data” will be a major asset class. Young people already realize they’ve been exploited by Facebook for their data; in the future, they will control and monetize their data through decentralized tech (like prediction markets). Wall Street advisors will never teach you to play prediction markets, but it’s the trend—young people know traditional finance is manipulated, and they crave alternatives. That’s why Bitcoin, DeFi, sports betting, and others are rising.

Host: Macro economist Raoul Pal said “diversification is dead,” and all asset performance is only related to money printing and fiat devaluation, so he’s fully into crypto. What do you think?

Jeff Park: I agree and disagree. If you only focus on traditional assets manipulated by the same global liquidity, then diversification is indeed meaningless. But if you broaden your view to include assets that aren’t manipulated by this flow—then diversification still has value. Last year, I proposed the “Radical Portfolio Theory,” listing 25 different uncorrelated assets. For example, in Asian cultures, gold remains the most primitive, irreplaceable store of value. Great artworks, during the 2008 financial crisis, proved to be some of the best trades. Some people trade rare high-end wines. I’m very optimistic about “tokenized assets” in crypto, but not to tokenize funds like BlackRock’s; I want to tokenize long-tail alternative assets like fine wines, super yachts, so that ordinary people can buy a small piece—say, $100—and build a hedge portfolio like billionaires.

Host: But that’s still too complicated for ordinary people. Like my 35-year-old sister, who’s just an office worker. How can she accumulate wealth?

Jeff Park: Over the past 20 years, young people have become more financially savvy. When you see many young people trading limited sneakers and Pokémon cards, don’t laugh. That’s precisely the diversified wealth thinking they need, rather than blindly chasing Nvidia stocks. They’re playing their own game, and if they succeed, it will be very powerful.

Host: There’s also something that’s even causing people to lose jobs: AI. You wrote an article called “Occupy AI.” Can you first explain what “Occupy Wall Street” was, then talk about “Occupy AI”?

Jeff Park: The “Occupy Wall Street” movement in 2008 saw angry citizens camping in downtown New York demanding justice. Because in the subprime crisis, banks were morally and legally at fault—they privatized profits but socialized losses (taxpayer bailouts), and didn’t bear consequences. I believe AI will trigger an even more exaggerated class struggle. We’ve never encountered a disruptive technology like AI, which can completely replace labor while generating record profits for corporate executives. We will see an even more extreme K-shaped economy—corporate profits rising not from increased revenue but from layoffs and cost-cutting. As I wrote in my article: “While Amazon hit new stock highs, it laid off 30k workers, illustrating the collapse of the price of free will and the soaring value of self-determination.”

Host: Can you explain what that means?

Jeff Park: People work not just to earn money but also to feel productive, contribute to society, and set an example for their children. If a person doesn’t create value, psychological issues will arise. Past technological advances (electricity, cars, trains, email) amplified human ability, making work faster and better, but the key is that you’re always working. But AI, at some levels, is about eliminating work altogether. What’s more unsettling is that to support AI data centers, some call for government backing, framing it as a “survival crisis—if we don’t do it, other countries will.” So governments invest in technologies that will replace their own taxpayers’ jobs. Do you think the public will support such self-destructive plans? That’s why “Occupy AI” is inevitable.

Unlike clear enemies on Wall Street dressed in suits and Hermès ties, AI is invisible. Tech giants only say “we’re just a platform.” Today’s young people graduate with huge student debt, can’t find jobs, can’t afford homes, and may never have jobs again. Meanwhile, tech giants are their own clients, with funds flowing among Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, creating new stock market highs—an extremely abnormal phenomenon.

Host: You wrote at the end of your article that “Occupy Wall Street turned Millennials into die-hard Bitcoin supporters, and Occupy AI will turn Generation Z and Alpha into Bitcoin supporters.” Can you explain this in simple terms?

Jeff Park: Everyone has an awakening or epiphany moment when they discover Bitcoin. For many Millennials, that moment was the 2008 financial crisis and the crazy money printing during COVID-19, when we realized the current monetary system is a scam. But for Generation Z and Alpha, currency devaluation no longer excites them—they’re already hopeless and disillusioned, fully aware that the system is beyond repair. As institutions like BlackRock buy large amounts of Bitcoin, they even think Bitcoin has become a “senior’s game.” But I believe AI will be the trigger for their awakening. These generations will face AI competition for jobs right out of school, touching their deepest personal interests. They will realize that Bitcoin is the best hedge asset. And if they see AI causing huge social harm, they will vote with their feet. Both AI and Bitcoin consume a lot of energy, and they might choose to support Bitcoin.

More importantly, AI is centered around centralization—it collects your data to replace you. If your data is used to train smarter models, you should be compensated. The only way to realize ownership traceability and value sharing is through decentralized cryptography. This could rekindle the younger generation’s original passion for “decentralized” crypto. I remain optimistic about AI benefiting society, but only if the “data contribution compensation” issue is solved.

Host: Many people might think Bitcoin is too expensive now, fluctuating at $60k, $70k, or even over $100,000, and they missed the last buying opportunity. What do you think?

Jeff Park: I think people need to consider: what are the downside risks if you don’t hold Bitcoin? If you don’t hold Bitcoin, you’re essentially shorting it. Fiat currency is devaluing at an unprecedented speed. Historically, when the US dollar’s fiscal deficit reaches uncontrollable levels, you must allocate your portfolio to the “fastest horse”—Bitcoin—or assets that resist global arbitrage cycles, like Hermès or Rolex.

Host: As a CIO who values diversification, for those holding large amounts of Bitcoin as savings, do you recommend a defensive or aggressive stance?

Jeff Park: Many in the space adopt a “barbell strategy”—half Bitcoin, half money market funds (cash), and nothing else. I personally prefer more diversified allocations. But if I had to choose only two assets in a portfolio, they would be: first, Bitcoin, because it’s the least correlated with global capital markets; second, interest-bearing assets within the dollar system. For example, I believe we will eventually return to a zero-interest-rate environment (by cutting rates to sustain the global leverage game), so buying 30-year US Treasuries now is a good move, as bond prices will rise when rates fall. That’s also a bet on America’s ultimate ability to solve its problems through innovation.

Host: How do you teach your two children to face a future dominated by AI using Bitcoin thinking?

Jeff Park: Bitcoin has taught me one thing: always stay open-minded and humble because the world is vaster than any individual or model. It’s a living experiment. I often tell my kids that practice makes progress, not perfection. Bitcoin will never be perfect, and nothing is, but we can keep improving in pursuit of our ideals.

相关阅读：对话前谷歌高管：AI是人类最后一项创新，接受并抢占先机