BlockBeats report: On February 24, a 7,000-word hypothetical report by research firm Citrini Research, framed as a "June 2028 Scenario," went viral on Wall Street, sparking widespread market anxiety over AI’s potential impact on white-collar employment and the credit system. The report introduces the concept of a "global intelligence crisis," warning that AI could trigger a "race to the bottom" in knowledge-based roles, disrupting the industrial and credit frameworks built around white-collar productivity.
As a result, U.S. stocks plunged sharply on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 822 points (-1.7%), the S&P 500 dropping 1%, and the Nasdaq Composite sliding 1.1%. The software sector suffered heavy losses, with Datadog, CrowdStrike, and Zscaler all declining more than 9%, while IBM tumbled 13%, marking its worst single-day performance since 2000. Companies named in the reports, including American Express, KKR, and Blackstone, also saw significant declines.
Private credit and banking sectors are under synchronized pressure; Blue Owl fell 3.4%, and Apollo Global Management dropped 5.6%. UBS analysis highlights that the real risk lies not in whether disruption will occur, but in the speed at which it happens—if the impact concentrates within 12 months, it could breach contractual protection clauses.
Defensive assets strengthened, with the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield falling to 4.026%, the lowest level since late November last year; gold rose 2.9% to $5,204.70 per ounce, and silver increased 5.2% to $86.52 per ounce.
Market participants believe that, amid high weightings in technology stocks and heightened sensitivity to AI prospects, sentiment amplification effects are pronounced. Some institutions caution investors against overreacting to single-scenario analyses, but the reassessment of business models and asset rotation trends triggered by AI continue to unfold.