Bitcoin Is Stuck While Stocks Keep Ripping | Fidelity’s Jurrien Timmer

Crypto security risks extend beyond exchange counterparty exposure: North Korean hackers have reportedly infiltrated firms while operating from Russia, and a Trezor fulfillment-partner breach exposed the phone numbers and addresses of 14,000 customers. The episode also cites French wrench attacks against crypto holders as four times more common in 2026 than in 2024.

AI infrastructure is reshaping both competition and capital allocation. Cheaper Chinese open-weight models could pressure expensive closed models and future AI-company IPOs, while Bitcoin miners are repurposing existing facilities as AI data centers because the economics are more attractive and the sites can be redeployed faster than new infrastructure can be built.

AI investment is becoming a major financing and shareholder-return question: hyperscalers are expected to borrow about $500 billion this year and another $500 billion next year for data centers, power, and chips, while the Magnificent Seven have reduced earnings payouts from roughly 85% to 35% to fund higher capex. Investors may reward spending with visible returns but punish spending that primarily preserves competitive positioning.

Timmer frames U.S. fiscal sustainability as dependent on keeping growth above the government’s funding rate, with AI-driven productivity central to that strategy; he contrasts it with Europe’s debt and insufficient growth. Against a roughly $40 trillion national debt and a record $432 billion July deficit, he says 5% or 6% yields would threaten debt sustainability, while a move in the 10-year yield from about 4.7% to 5% could pressure equity multiples, though earnings growth might offset a price decline.