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Citadel founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/investing/billionaire-ken-griffin-admits-he-was-wrong-about-bitcoin-crypto" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Ken Griffin</a> says AI is "almost certainly" a bubble.
Speaking at Citadel's Future of Global Markets Conference in New York on Oct. 20,&nbsp;he told <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV1V0FXixDE&amp;t=541s" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Bloomberg</a> that investors are "almost certainly" in the middle of an AI bubble right now,
&nbsp;He wasn't calling for a sell-off.
<blockquote>
 "What's left in the wake of these bubbles, if we want to use that word, is often game changing for the world," he said. "And the companies that are on the other side of that bubble are the market leaders for decades to come."&nbsp;
</blockquote>
He compared today's moment to the dot-com era, saying "any radical transformation of our economy is generally intertwined with a bubble," and admitted he wishes he'd kept his Amazon stock after that one burst.
Citadel is the hedge fund Griffin founded at 22, three years after he started trading convertible bonds out of his Harvard dorm room in <a href="https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2btfmc4i914x7pya9zwg0/home/boy-wonder" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">1987</a>. It now manages about $67 billion.
<blockquote>
 Griffin&nbsp;also made an unusual comparison,&nbsp;"GPUs, like airlines, have a very low marginal cost to run. The incremental seat on an airline that's not full, if you sell it for 20 dollars, you are making money on that seat."
</blockquote>
His point was, once GPU supply outpaces demand, operators will rent compute far below today's prices rather than let it sit idle, the same way an airline would rather sell a seat cheap than fly it empty. Prices won't drift down. They'll crash.
That's the core of his argument: not that AI is fake, but that today's pricing and spending discipline won't hold, and a handful of well-capitalized winners will outlast a crowd of overextended followers once it corrects.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/u-s-housing-squeeze-could-keep-rents-higher-for-longer-experts-warn" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: U.S. housing squeeze could keep rents higher for longer, experts warn</a>
<h2 id="why-it-matters-for-crypto">Why it matters for crypto</h2>
48 hours after Griffin made the remarks, Bitcoin (BTC) dropped as much as 2.9% to around $81,800. It marked its biggest slide in two weeks, after mixed Tesla and Meta earnings reignited AI-spending doubts across equities.
While Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1.32%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped more than 2%.&nbsp;
At the time of writing, bitcoin was trading around $81,647, down 3.56% on the day, <a href="https://app.decibel.trade/trade/BTC-USD" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">per Decibel</a>.
Griffin had not spoken about Bitcoin. But the market's response&nbsp;isn't a one-off.&nbsp;
In June this year, an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-23/bitcoin-hits-two-week-low-as-tech-selloff-sparks-risk-off-mood" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">AI-capex-driven selloff in megacap tech dragged bitcoin</a> below $62,000.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino had already seen this coming. He <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF2HdKsonNE" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">warned</a> during the Bitcoin Capital podcast in December last year that an AI bubble correction was his single biggest worry for bitcoin in 2026.&nbsp;Not regulation, not a halving effect, but bitcoin’s own stubborn correlation to capital markets could prove to be risky, he worried.
Crypto insiders have flagged this exact risk for nearly a year. Griffin just gave it its highest-profile stamp yet.
Griffin isn't bearish on AI itself, he's bearish on today's pricing discipline around it. If chip and compute costs behave like airline seats, the pressure shows up first in the most speculative corners of the trade, like unprofitable AI infrastructure names, leveraged data-center plays, and then the risk assets that move with them, Bitcoin included.
The takeaway isn't sell Bitcoin because of AI. It's that bitcoin's price action this earnings season is likely to keep tracking Big Tech's AI capex commentary as much as anything happening on-chain.
<h3 id="popular-on-thestreet-roundtable">Popular on TheStreet Roundtable:</h3>
<ul>
 <li><a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/jpmorgans-answer-to-the-stablecoin-threat-is-here" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">JPMorgan’s answer to the stablecoin threat is here</a></li>
 <li><a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/business/major-gold-holder-backs-nvidia-challenger" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Major gold holder backs NVIDIA challenger</a></li>
 <li><a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/blackrocks-iconic-fund-posts-strongest-day-in-over-12-months" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">BlackRock's iconic fund posts strongest day in over 12 months</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="what-s-next">What’s next?</h2>
The next test comes soon.
The Fed's rate decision lands Oct. 28. After raising rates in September, the Fed is widely expected to hold steady this time.
Coinbase, the leading crypto exchange in the U.S., reports Q3 earnings the following day.
Both will move alongside whatever mood AI earnings commentary has set by then.
If Nvidia, Microsoft or other hyperscalers flag slower AI spending growth in upcoming reports, crypto investors can expect the equity-to-crypto transmission Griffin highlighted to repeat, not fade.
<h2 id="the-roundtable-100">The Roundtable 100</h2>
If you follow our market coverage, don’t miss the <a href="https://roundtable100.com/tab/rankings" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Roundtable 100</a>. Updated every Friday, it's a power ranking of the 100 most investable tech stocks, including digital assets. Check out the latest <a href="https://roundtable100.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">RTB 100</a> rankings at <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">roundtable100.com</a>.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/circle-jumps-40-places-on-the-roundtable-100-after-73-3b-milestone" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: Circle jumps 40 places on the Roundtable 100 after $73.3B milestone</a>

Billionaire hedge fund manager's AI bubble warning hits Bitcoin already

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