The Research Firm That Spooked Wall Street On AI Now Says Crypto Finally Matters

Citrini Research, the firm whose AI scenario rattled stocks in February, now argues that AI agents have given crypto the purpose it spent 15 years looking for.

Key Takeaways

Citrini said agents are a new class of user that ignores crypto’s poor user experience
The firm asked whether agents moving deposits to the highest bidder could cost banks their cheap funding
It cited the SEC’s Sept. 17 tokenized stock exemption as a sign regulators are moving
Citrini said the investor question is now who captures the economics, not whether tokenization is legal

“Blockchains have finally found their raison d’être,” the firm said in a note published Thursday.

Finance, it said, is slow, fragmented and gated by intermediaries and identity checks. “It was built by humans, for humans,” the note said. Agents that run around the clock do not wrestle with seed phrases, bridges or gas fees.

The Agentic Bank Run Question

Citrini opened with a personal AI told to find the cheapest $500,000 loan and refinance into it. Taken far enough, it said, millions of agents could keep moving deposits toward whoever pays most.

“Could banks lose the cheap funding they rely on? Is an agentic bank run coming?” the note asked. Its public section does not answer either question.

Citrini’s February scenario of AI-driven job losses knocked DoorDash, Mastercard and Visa shares lower in one session.

What Changed Its Mind

To test the idea, the author loaded $1,000 into Coinbase Wallet expecting to get rug-pulled. Instead, the note said, it found tokenized treasuries, equities, options, lending and payment apps that resemble traditional finance.

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Citrini pointed to a weekend in March when the Iran conflict escalated and Hyperliquid became one of the only liquid venues pricing crude oil. It credited Robinhood Chain’s Stock Tokens with first letting tokenized equities move between apps.

It said Solana briefly processed more trades than the NYSE in September, conceding most of that was likely bots and meme pairs.

The SEC issued its tokenized stock exemption on September 17, two days after the CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate. It runs five years but caps the most liquid stocks at 75 symbols and 0.25% of daily volume. Coinbase’s proposed U.S. stock perpetuals remain pending at the CFTC, the note said.

Where The Money Lands

Citrini said investors should stop asking whether tokenization will be legal and start asking who captures the economics once these products reach the U.S.