Arthur Hayes predicts $1M bitcoin as AI credit event looms

AI's $725 billion capital splurge has starved crypto of liquidity — and Arthur Hayes is betting the hangover will send bitcoin to $1 million.

Bitcoin has tumbled more than 50% from its $126,000 peak to trade near $60,000 as institutional capital floods into artificial intelligence infrastructure, with hyperscalers including Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet projected to spend a combined $725 billion on AI data centers and hardware in 2026 alone, according to industry estimates.

"The implosion of the AI bubble and the money printing that's going to happen, especially in the United States, is going to dwarf sub-prime and it's going to take us to a $1 million bitcoin price," Arthur Hayes, former BitMEX chief executive and founder of the Maelstrom family office, said on the Bankless podcast. Hayes compared the current AI capex cycle to the pre-industrial railroad buildout, arguing that no amount of spending can accelerate Moore's Law — the observation that chip performance doubles roughly every two years.

Hayes, who also spoke on the New Era Finance podcast with Michaël van de Poppe, said the Federal Reserve's response to an AI-driven credit event would be to print money at a scale that exceeds the 2008 bank bailouts. "If we do get an AI credit event, it will be bigger than 2008 because the whole world is in this delusion that AI is the biggest technology ever," he said. "The Fed can't out-print Moore's Law." He framed the trade as a generational opportunity, comparing it to Michael Burry's bet against subprime mortgages that became the basis of the film "The Big Short."

The AI Liquidity Drain

The capital rotation out of crypto and into AI has been stark. Bitcoin's slide from $126,000 to just above $60,000 coincided with a surge in AI-related equity issuance and corporate bond offerings as companies raced to fund GPU purchases and data center construction. New Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh held interest rates steady at his first meeting, with inflation at a three-year high and payrolls adding more than 500,000 jobs over the past three months, according to Labor Department data.

Hayes argued that when investors decide AI investment no longer meets its cost of capital, that money will flow "straight" into bitcoin and crypto. "I don't care how much money you throw at this thing, you can't change the fact that chips get better every two years even if you pump $10 trillion into the economy," he said. "What's the response going to be by the financial authorities to save the banks? We'll just shovel fiat money in."

The $1 Million Bet

The prediction places Hayes among the most bullish voices in crypto, even as the market struggles to reclaim its all-time high. BlackRock has projected the crypto market could reach $9 trillion in the current cycle, but near-term headwinds remain. Bitcoin's 24-hour trading volume has fallen below its seven-day average, and open interest across major derivatives exchanges has declined as traders reduce leverage.

"If you time this well, you'll never work again," Hayes said, echoing the language of traders who bet against the housing market in 2007. The key variable, he said, is whether the AI capex cycle cracks before the Fed is forced to intervene — a scenario he sees as inevitable given the scale of spending relative to productivity gains.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.