Arthur Hayes thinks everyone has the AI trade filed under the wrong category.
In a new essay, the co-founder of crypto exchange BitMEX and crypto fund Maelstrom said the ongoing infrastructure buildout is a credit story like 2008, not an earnings story like the 2000 dot-com bust.
Hyperscalers, or computing frms borrow against their massive data centers, are stuffed with chips that depreciate fast, and lenders bankroll it believing they are financing technology when the underlying asset is closer to real estate.
The break comes when announced capex stops accelerating, which he pegs for late 2027 into 2028. Credit keeps flowing well past that point, the way mortgage lending did into 2007, until the weakest AI debt cracks and drags down whoever is over-levered on it.
Hayes expects Washington and Beijing to backstop the wreckage in the name of national security, printing more than they did in 2008, and that flood of liquidity is what bottoms bitcoin and drives it toward $1 million.
The nearer-term call is that the recent AI selloff, Korea’s leveraged unwind included, is a dip inside a bull market.
Bitcoin traded near $64,200 on Wednesday, flat on the week and still stuck in the range it has held since May.