The Global Economy Under Pressure: Why Bitcoin Stands Out According to Macro Expert Jordi Visser

Understanding the Double Pressure on Today’s Economy

In a thought-provoking conversation with Anthony Pompliano, seasoned macro investor Jordi Visser, who founded Jordi Visser Labs, painted a striking picture of our current economic landscape. According to Visser, we’re living through something extraordinary—the global economy is being squeezed by what he calls “double pressure,” a situation we’ve never quite seen before. On one side, we’re facing inflation that refuses to behave as economists expected. On the other, we’re experiencing a deflationary force driven by rapid technological advancement, particularly artificial intelligence. Imagine being caught between two massive waves crashing from opposite directions—that’s essentially what’s happening to our economy right now. What makes this situation particularly fascinating is how Bitcoin, the digital currency that many still struggle to understand, seems uniquely positioned to weather both storms. While traditional investments are getting pummeled from one direction or another, Bitcoin appears to have found its footing in this turbulent environment, offering something that neither traditional stocks nor conventional assets can provide in these unusual times.

Inflation Isn’t Going Anywhere—And Here’s Why

Despite what many market analysts have been predicting, Visser makes a bold claim that goes against the grain: inflation isn’t coming down anytime soon. In fact, he’s confident it’s heading in the opposite direction. He points to specific data that most people don’t pay attention to—the manufacturing and services PMI (Purchasing Managers Index), which essentially measures how busy businesses are. These indicators have climbed to their highest levels since 2022, suggesting that economic activity is heating up, not cooling down. Visser doesn’t mince words with his prediction either: he expects consumer inflation (CPI) to climb above 4% within the next three months. That’s significantly higher than what central banks want to see, and it’s certainly higher than what most investors have been betting on. What’s driving this stubbornly high inflation? According to Visser, we’re looking at a combination of factors including a commodity bull market—meaning prices for raw materials like oil, metals, and agricultural products are rising—and persistent logistics bottlenecks that continue to gum up global supply chains. These aren’t temporary hiccups; they’re structural problems that keep pushing prices higher for everyday goods and services, affecting everyone from manufacturers to consumers standing in checkout lines.

The AI Revolution Is Crushing Software Companies

While inflation worries traditional economists, there’s another force reshaping the investment landscape in an entirely different way. Visser has noticed something troubling happening to software companies, particularly those in the SaaS (Software as a Service) sector, and he attributes it directly to artificial intelligence. Software stocks have been declining, and the reason, according to Visser, is what he calls “margin narrowing” created by AI. To explain this concept, he invokes a famous quote from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: “Your profit margin is my opportunity.” What Bezos meant was that wherever companies are making high profits, there’s an opportunity for someone to disrupt them by offering something similar but cheaper. That’s exactly what AI is doing to the software industry. Visser makes a striking argument: in code-based businesses, the concept of “terminal value”—the idea that a company will continue generating profits forever—no longer exists. Why? Because artificial intelligence is driving the cost of producing software down toward zero. When AI can write code, debug programs, and create software solutions at a fraction of the traditional cost, the entire economic model of software companies falls apart. This isn’t just a minor adjustment; Visser describes it as a “deflationary disaster” for traditional software companies. Companies that once commanded premium prices because coding required expensive human talent are now watching their competitive advantages evaporate as AI tools become more sophisticated.

Bitcoin: The Unexpected Winner in a Conflicted Economy

So we have inflation on one side and AI-driven deflation on the other—where does that leave investors? According to Visser, Bitcoin emerges as the surprising “winner” positioned perfectly between these two opposing forces. His reasoning is both elegant and compelling. As global liquidity increases (meaning more money flowing through the financial system) and negative real interest rates become a permanent feature of our economy—where inflation runs higher than the interest you can earn on savings—Bitcoin gains value as what Visser calls “the most vulnerable growth asset.” But what makes Bitcoin special isn’t its technology or its code. In fact, Visser argues that’s precisely the point. In a world where software and technology stocks are losing value because AI can replicate what they do, Bitcoin stands apart because its value comes from something completely different: scarcity, not code. You can’t ask an AI to create more Bitcoin beyond the predetermined supply limit built into its protocol. While AI might write the next great software application overnight, it can’t mine Bitcoin any faster or create additional coins beyond the 21 million that will ever exist. This fundamental difference—that Bitcoin’s value proposition is based on rarity rather than utility that can be replicated—is why Visser sees it diverging from the downward trajectory of software stocks. In essence, while AI is teaching us that code has become cheap and abundant, Bitcoin reminds us that true digital scarcity still commands value.

Welcome to the Era of Scarcity Capitalism

Visser’s investment philosophy has evolved to match these new economic realities. He describes the current era as “scarcity capitalism,” a fundamental shift from the abundance mindset that characterized much of modern economics. In this new paradigm, portfolio management isn’t about finding the next hot tech startup or investing in companies with the most impressive algorithms. Instead, Visser focuses on five main themes that all share a common thread—they’re based on physical scarcity or irreplaceable infrastructure rather than easily replicated digital products. His five focus areas are semiconductors (the physical chips that power all our devices), power equipment (the electrical infrastructure needed to run our increasingly digital world), chemicals (the physical materials required for manufacturing), physical servers (the actual hardware that houses data, not the software running on it), and of course, Bitcoin. Notice what all these investments have in common: they’re either physically scarce resources or, in Bitcoin’s case, mathematically scarce assets that can’t be wished into existence by better algorithms or more powerful AI. This investment strategy represents a profound shift in thinking. For decades, investors chased growth in ideas, software, and services—things that could scale infinitely with minimal additional cost. But Visser is betting that in a world where AI makes intellectual property and code nearly free, the real value will accrue to things that genuinely can’t be replicated, whether that’s rare earth minerals needed for semiconductors or the fixed supply of Bitcoin.

The Twenty-Year Outlook: AI Versus Traditional Systems

Perhaps most provocatively, Visser looks beyond our immediate economic concerns to paint a picture of the next two decades. He argues that artificial intelligence will fundamentally challenge not just individual industries but the very foundations of capitalism and our fiat currency system as we currently understand them. When AI can produce goods, services, and intellectual property at near-zero marginal cost, what happens to the economic systems built on scarcity of human labor and expertise? Visser envisions what he calls a “world of abundance” where traditional economic assumptions break down. In such a world, most things become cheap or even free to produce, which sounds wonderful until you consider what it means for value storage and exchange. If everything can be replicated effortlessly, what serves as money? What holds value over time? This is where Visser’s long-term thesis on Bitcoin becomes almost philosophical. In this future world of AI-driven abundance, he argues that Bitcoin will stand as “the only truly rare asset that can be exchanged.” It’s important to note that Visser, like any responsible financial professional, emphasizes that his views don’t constitute investment advice. These are projections and theories about how global economics, technology, and monetary systems might evolve. However, his perspective offers a fascinating framework for thinking about where value might flow in an economy that looks radically different from anything we’ve experienced before—one where the traditional rules are being rewritten by forces pulling in opposite directions simultaneously.