Arthur Hayes Predicts Money Printing Will Propel Crypto Prices

Arthur Hayes, chief investment officer at Maelstrom fund and BitMEX co-founder, warned that US policymakers will likely resort to money printing to finance trillion-dollar AI infrastructure and manage government debt, ultimately driving cryptocurrency prices higher. Speaking at a fireside chat during CONNECT by Cointelegraph: Seoul Edition on Tuesday at Korea Blockchain Week, Hayes argued that AI companies need massive capital to build data centers even as service costs decline, leaving policymakers with few alternatives.

Hayes also highlighted a potential shift in China from an "austerity lite" policy toward substantial monetary stimulus, which he said could revive demand for scarce assets like Bitcoin. He pointed to emerging financial stress in Europe, particularly credit-default swaps tied to BNP Paribas and widening French government bond spreads, as additional signals that global money printing is inevitable. "I think the money printing will essentially happen at some point, but that's sort of a slow motion train wreck happening underneath the surface," Hayes stated. Separately, he has previously suggested the AI credit bubble could fuel a Bitcoin "crack-up boom" past $1 million.

Beyond Hayes' macro outlook, CONNECT Seoul panels examined Wall Street's accelerating move onchain. Catrina Wang, general partner at Portal Ventures, noted that banks and asset managers hold a structural advantage because they already own customer relationships, quoting tech analyst Ben Thompson's aggregation theory: "Whoever owns the customer relationship owns the economics." R3 co-founder Todd McDonald, whose firm built the Corda private network platform before announcing a May 2025 collaboration to connect institutional assets to Solana's public chain, emphasized that institutions must meet customers where they are heading. The discussions also covered stablecoins, corporate crypto treasuries, and how onchain infrastructure is reshaping traditional finance's competitive landscape.