I've opened a market on this bet.
https://manifold.markets/palcu/ai-market-crash-by-2026?r=cGFsY3U
Nice! Cool to see that turned into a prediction market.
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BTW, I adjusted my guesstimate of winning down to a quarter.
I now guess it's more like 1/8 chance (meaning that from my perspective Marcus will win this bet on expectation). It is pretty hard to imagine so many paying customers going away, particularly as revenues have been growing in the last year.
Marcus has thought this one through carefully, and I'm naturally sticking to the commitment. If we end up seeing a crash down the line, I invite all of you to consider with me how to make maximum use of that opportunity.
I still think a crash is fairly likely, but also that if there is a large slump in investment across the industry that most customers could end up continuing to pay for subscriptions.
The main problem I see is that OpenAI and Anthropic are losing money on products they are selling, which are facing commodification (i.e. downward pressure on prices). But unless investments run dry soon, they can continue for some years and eventually find ways to lock in customers (e.g. through personalisation) and monetisation (e.g. personalised ads).
I'm pretty sure it's literally impossible for the crash criteria of this bet to be met at this point. Based on reported information, OpenAI and Anthropic both easily exceed the 2025 revenue thresholds, and in fact both have presumably already exceeded the 2026 revenue thresholds! Even if a solar storm knocked out all electronics for the rest of the year I think Marcus would win because OpenAI and Anthropic have already exceeded the revenue criteria for both 2025 and 2026, and Nvidia alone missing its quarterly criteria isn't enough for Remmelt to win.
OpenAI: according to CNBC they had $13.1 billion in revenue in 2025, according to their blog their ARR at the end of 2025 was $20B, and according to The Information their ARR as of February 2026 was $25B. Even if we use the lower end and assume their average revenue in January and February was $20B annualized, they've already made $3.3B in revenue in 2026, meaning they've surpassed both revenue thresholds.
Anthropic: according to their blog they had an ARR of $1B in January 2025, and by February 2026 it's up to $14B. According to the LA Times their ARR was $9B at the end of 2025. Again, even if we use the lower numbers (estimating $1B in revenue in 2025 and $1.5B so far in 2026) they've easily hit their targets.
I agree with this (and made this assessment about a month ago). I have asked Remmelt for payment. Id be happy to make a new similar bet. I dont see reason to believe there will be an AI crash.
We made a bet on the AI market crashing by the end of 2026.
The odds are $5k:$25k with an implied probability of 16.67%. If there is no crash, Remmelt pays Marcus $5,000. If there is a crash, Marcus pays Remmelt $25,000.
An AI market crash will be defined, for the purposes of this bet, as at least 2 out of 3 of the following criteria being met.
Here are our criteria:
It’s hard to come up with criteria for what constitutes an AI market crash, as many operationalizations face confounding factors that don’t constitute a crash. These criteria were chosen since these are three of the most prominent AI-related companies and have public and verifiable revenue reporting.
Remmelt thinks that there is roughly a quarter chance of winning the bet.
Marcus thinks there is a ~4% chance of Remmelt winning the bet, mostly losing due to idiosyncrasies like one of these companies collapsing due to fraud or internal turmoil.
Why are we doing this bet?
We both think that AI developments will be more gradual than “AGI 2027” purports.
So what’s the difference in our views?
Marcus thinks there won’t be a large crash because AI products have found product market fit, will continue to improve gradually over the next couple of years, and users will continue to pay for AI products. He holds a wide probability space for how the next couple of years will play out, with a small possibility of large changes or a winter, but the bulk of the probability mass is on “staying the course” with gradual improvements and new releases over the next 1.5 years.
Remmelt thinks there will likely be a crash by 2029, since AI companies are burning too much cash on data centers to run products undergoing commodification. He thinks it’s most plausible though that the crash happens on the investment side, and that model subscription revenues could end up being mostly maintained.
Remmelt is treating this bet as a hedge – if the market crashes, he intends to give winnings to an exceptional movement builder to organise communities to resist weakened AI companies.
Marcus is approaching this bet as an experienced market trader and forecaster, looking to profit and likely donate winnings.
This covers Nvidia revenue items currently under the ‘Data Center’ category, even if renamed or moved to another category.