Bitcoin — along with artificial intelligence — could help humans get their time back to create again, according to Strike CEO Jack Mallers.
The reason: hard money doesn’t rob people of their time and energy and truly rewards people time and energy well spent, Mallers argued on Bitcoin Magazine’s debut TV show on Monday.
“Money broadly is our time and energy in an abstracted form — it is the market good that represents the effort, the labor,” Mallers said.
“If the money is bad, it’s very destructive to our time and energy: It robs us of our time and energy. You have to work longer and harder to get a house; you have to work longer and harder to get a vacation. You have to work longer and harder to have hours to pursue your artistic interests.”
“And if the money is good, it actually gives you and rewards back time and energy,” he continued, adding that Bitcoin and AI could free humans from the “drudgery” of bad money.
Mallers went on to cite the example of the creators of the airplane, the Wright brothers, who came up with their invention when the U.S. was on a gold standard.
Mallers’ comments come following Bitcoin’s best run in years. Bitcoin gained about 25% in August, its strongest month of 2026 and its first positive August since 2021, closing the month near $78,000.
The run followed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s move to expand long-dated bond buybacks, which pulled yields down and triggered billions in short liquidations.
Since the news, the so-called debasement trade has been back in the headlines again: when traders buy assets like gold or bitcoin to hedge against a currency losing its value.
The dollar slid on the Treasury buyback news and an announcement the same week that U.S. debt had hit the $40 trillion mark.
Speaking about the state of the U.S. economy, Mallers added: “This level of debt is unsustainable, so when people debate, oh well, what if they hike rates? What if they cut rates? It doesn’t matter: it’s all inflationary and it’s all untenable.”
Data on Friday revealed that the consumer price index, excluding food and energy, climbed 0.3% in August from a month earlier — higher than expected.
The U.S. is currently in the grips of an affordability crisis, and it’s widely expected that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this week to tame inflation as oil prices have surged.