Raoul Pal: Cryptocurrency is the "universal basic equity" of the AI era, with Agents representing three-fifths of DeFi users in five years

On May 7th, Real Vision co-founder and CEO Raoul Pal spoke at the Consensus 2026 conference in Miami, sharing these key insights: - Humanity is at an unprecedented historical turning point. We’re on the cusp of seeing AGI entities that outpace humans in intelligence, flexibility, and power—with AI capabilities doubling annually right now. By 2028, AI’s annual text output will exceed all human text production in history, and all of this will unfold within 5 years. - When AI massively replaces human labor, the solution isn’t traditional Universal Basic Income (UBI)—it’s “Universal Basic Equity.” For the first time ever, ordinary people can directly own the underlying network by holding crypto infrastructure tokens, reaping benefits as the Agent economy expands. Institutional entry into the space hasn’t strayed from the crypto ethos; instead, it lets anyone worldwide buy BTC, ETH, SOL on the same footing as firms like BlackRock. - In a rapid-fire Q&A, Pal said if he had to choose one, he’d pick Solana over Bitcoin. He also predicted that within 5 years, Agents will outnumber humans 3:2 as the primary user group in DeFi.