Arthur Hayes said the recent divergence between Bitcoin and the Nasdaq 100 Index is a warning of a potential AI-driven credit crisis that could force central banks to print more money.
“Bitcoin is the global fiat liquidity fire alarm. It is the most responsive freely traded asset to the fiat credit supply,”
Hayes wrote in a blog post, arguing that the breakdown in correlation with technology stocks warrants closer scrutiny.
He claimed that large-scale job losses caused by artificial intelligence adoption could impair consumer credit and mortgage repayments, triggering significant write-downs across US commercial banks.
Hayes estimated that a 20% reduction in the US’s 72 million knowledge workers could result in roughly $557 billion in consumer credit and mortgage losses, equivalent to a 13% hit to bank equity.
He suggested that weaker regional banks would falter first, depositors would withdraw funds and credit markets would tighten, ultimately prompting the Federal Reserve to resume aggressive monetary expansion.
“This AI financial crisis will restart the money printing machine for realz,”
Hayes said, predicting that renewed liquidity would “propel Bitcoin to a new all-time high.”
In addition to Bitcoin, Hayes said his firm Maelstrom would consider deploying capital into Zcash and Hyperliquid if the Fed pivots, reiterating his broader thesis that future fiat expansion will favour hard digital assets.
At the time of reporting, Bitcoin price was $67,836.29.