Apollo calls bs on tokenomics but the AI invoice still matters
- Tokens are not intelligence. They are the exhaust pipe, not the engine. Apollo’s point is that the market has been measuring AI throughput when it should be measuring useful output.
- AI is getting cheaper per unit of capability, but that does not mean the invoice goes down. A collapsing unit cost multiplied by exploding usage still leaves the CFO with a bigger bill.
- The CFO has entered the AI chat. The free buffet phase is ending, and enterprises are moving to caps, alerts, model routing, and tighter cost controls.
- Frontier AI stays premium where the ROI is obvious. Citadel, Jane Street, coding, research, and high-value workflows can pay up. French-toast-level tasks will get pushed to cheaper models.
- The AI trade is not dead, but the multiple needs an audit. The market must now separate real intelligence leverage from companies that simply benefited from everyone leaving the compute tap running.
Apollo calls BS on tokenomics
This one is right in the Dark Side of the Boom wheelhouse because it cuts straight through the AI fog machine. Apollo’s John Zito has put a sharp institutional blade into the tokenomics debate, arguing at the Morgan Stanley US Financials Conference that the market is measuring the wrong thing. In his view, tokens are not intelligence. They are not productivity. They are not business value. They are simply the exhaust fumes coming out of the AI engine. The real metric is cost per unit of useful intelligence, and on that measure, the price of AI is not inflating. It is collapsing.
Author
Stephen Innes
SPI Asset Management
With more than 25 years of experience, Stephen has a deep-seated knowledge of G10 and Asian currency markets as well as precious metal and oil markets.
