Hayes predicted Bitcoin will reach $250,000 from continued money printing, rather than through a single catalyst.
• He said he had 10 times more exposure to Bitcoin than gold, and his public equity exposure is focused on gold miners and Exxon Mobil.
• Hayes called the AI buildout the biggest capex bubble in history and said Bitcoin could still drop 75%.
Arthur Hayes sees Bitcoin (BTC) reaching $250,000 without the kind of financial crisis that fueled its biggest historical rallies. But the crypto investor also warned that BTC could plunge 75% along the way.
The Maelstrom CIO expects continued global money printing to push BTC higher, adding that policymakers will keep liquidity flowing rather than allow a 2008-style credit event tied to the ballooning capital spending boom in artificial intelligence.
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"We're not going to get sort of a 2008-sized credit event, but we're just going to continue print, print and print, and you're going to look up and see, you know, Bitcoin at $250,000," Hayes said on Anthony Pompliano's podcast on Tuesday. "There wasn't really a financial crisis. What's going on?"
It wasn't an adoption story, but that of liquidity, Hayes said, adding that the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury, Japan, China and Europe were all easing in their own way to avoid a coordinated global credit event. Policymakers would print early and often rather than let firms go under, he said, because they didn't want a public reckoning over their support for the AI buildout.
When asked how his Bitcoin and gold holdings compared, Hayes said the split was 10-to-1 in favor of Bitcoin. His public equity holdings were focused on gold miners, which he said were still trading at a relatively low price and were one of the best ways to play the money-printing thesis. He also said he owned Exxon Mobil (XOM), saying that energy was materially underweighted as a share of global equity benchmarks.
But Bitcoin Could Still Crash 75%
Hayes was explicit about the risk in his own position. "Bitcoin could go down 75%. You never know," he said, adding that investors should cover every channel money might be pushed into. "There's no such thing as being 100% long in anything."
Bitcoin has been underperforming because the marginal dollar has gone to AI, Hayes said. Heavy AI-related debt issuance has crowded out both the Bitcoin and government bond markets. He pointed out that Bitcoin's all-time high of $125,000 was only twice the previous cycle's peak, which, he said, was unimpressive by historical standards.