Bitcoin’s next major rally is contingent on the deflation of the AI stock bubble, according to Arthur Hayes, who published a macro thesis citing $1.5 trillion in AI debt issuance as the primary drain on liquidity that Bitcoin would otherwise absorb. Hayes, the former BitMEX CEO and current chief investment officer at Maelstrom, argues that until that speculative capital rotates out of artificial intelligence equities, Bitcoin will remain rangebound.
Hayes disclosed that he has exited positions in HYPE, NEAR, WLD, and ZEC, and has rotated Maelstrom’s entire equity book into US energy producers. The move represents a bet on real-asset inflation and commodity demand over the digital and tech sectors he previously favored.
The thesis frames AI infrastructure spending as a massive credit event that has sucked liquidity away from risk assets like Bitcoin, with Hayes warning that the unwind could be abrupt. He did not provide a specific timeline for when the AI bubble might burst, but characterized the current environment as one where capital is misallocated toward capital-intensive AI buildouts.
A counterargument holds that AI debt issuance is backed by productive enterprise value and revenue growth, not speculative froth, and that Bitcoin’s correlation with tech stocks has actually strengthened in 2024, meaning a sector-wide selloff could drag both down together. Critics also note that Hayes has a history of bearish Bitcoin calls that proved premature.