Inside Arthur Hayes’ Bitcoin Thesis: Liquidity, Cycles, and the Road to $1M

In this episode of When Shift Happens, I sit down with Arthur Hayes to discuss why he keeps most of his wealth in Bitcoin, his framework for turning “shitcoins” into more BTC, the stablecoin meta he thinks will reshape finance, and the human routines like skiing, tennis, and discipline that anchor his risk-taking. 

The Bitcoin Standard

Hayes is the CIO of Maelstrom, co-founder and former CEO of BitMEX, and the inventor of the perpetual swap. Across an hour of fast exchanges and deep conversation, he lays out a simple premise with far-reaching implications: Bitcoin remains the best tool for preserving and compounding wealth in an age of chronic money printing, and the game is still early.

Hayes begins from first principles. “Bitcoin is probably the safest thing that someone can invest in because the technology has been proven rock solid” across fifteen years. He’s not a Bitcoin maxi, but the portfolio message is unmistakable: “We shitcoin and earn more Bitcoin.” Maelstrom’s benchmark for any allocation, liquid or venture, is BTC itself. 

If a team can’t beat it, he says, why hire them at all? The bar is high because, to Hayes, Bitcoin sits alone as the asset most likely to outperform from today forward, given the policy reflex of modern states. Asked whether $110,000 makes BTC “too expensive,” he reframes the question: relative to bonds, gold, or equities as inflation hedges from here, which is likelier to win? His answer doesn’t change.

The Liquidity Lens: Reading the Rhythm of Money Printing

Backing this view is the most important variable: liquidity. Hayes studies “the pace at which governments will print money” and, crucially, how markets expect that pace to evolve. That expectation sets the growth potential for scarce assets, including Bitcoin and gold. 

Today, his team is “pretty much fully invested” on the liquid side, but “price is what you pay, value is what you get”, so they’re disciplined about entries and cautious on frothy early-stage deals. He sketches a cycle map: a peak in 2028, then a generational selloff in 2029–2030 as political rhetoric shifts and investors begin to believe that printing may slow. Whether politicians actually change course is almost beside the point; in markets, shifts in belief create change before policies catch up.

Based on that understanding, Maelstrom will target 10–100x outcomes over 2–3 years, then rotate profits into BTC. “Some tokens will go 10–20x in a short period and beat Bitcoin,” he says, but they may not endure for another 15 years. He delegates deal selection to an internal team and primarily handles risk management. Today, the team prefers liquid analysis and protocol-level opportunities to pricey seed/pre-seed. “We built our portfolio in the depths of the bear,” he notes, citing positions like Ethena and EtherFi.

Stablecoins and the Next Dollar Empire

A core thread of the conversation is the stablecoin meta. Hayes calls himself a “U.S. dollar stablecoin maxi”, not because he loves the dollar (“It’s complete trash versus crypto”), but because billions of people outside the U.S. want dollars’ purchasing power, yield, and access. As a trade, he likes issuers and rails that convert that global demand into scale and cash flow. 

Moreover, he believes the U.S. will export dollar stablecoins to counter de-dollarization and finance Treasury demand. Given that distribution is already locked up by the largest players, Hayes is more bullish on infrastructure that lets SMEs accept stablecoins and stay compliant (think invoicing, tax, payroll) than on backing a new issuer. 

Hayes is also clear that cash flow now matters in token design. The market cycled from 2017’s “website + token” ICOs, to 2020–21’s yield games, to 2023–24’s high-FDV/low-float listings. The survivors of this cycle share two traits: real users and value returned to token holders. 

He singles out HyperLiquid as a DEX that routes tangible trading revenue back to the community. The challenge, he warns, is the “chatification moment” where capital-rich competitors start dropping zero-fee trading to starve buybacks. If your token value proposition rests on fee revenue, what happens when fees go to zero? The next leg of innovation will reward teams that can retain liquidity while inventing new, durable economics beyond simple trading spreads.

Gold, Hedges, and the Human Side of Investing

What about gold? Hayes holds it, and gold miners ETFs, because it’s “the money of governments.” In a geopolitical shock, gold can sprint ahead of Bitcoin over short windows, and institutions still reach for it first. It makes sense to run a barbell: crypto on one side, and on the other, Treasury bills plus gold/miners in his TradFi bucket.

His risk framework also leaves room for personal sanity. Portfolio sizing is individual, he says: “If you go to bed and need to check your phone because you’re worried about the price of Bitcoin, you own too much.” For him, less than 5% of net worth is actively traded; the rest is positioning and patience. He’s a gut-driven investor who constantly reads, reframes, and acts when reality diverges from the model instead of being chained to prescriptive rules.

Flow, and the Philosophy of Enough

Hayes’ “mission in life” is simple: skiing and tennis. He works a few focused hours a day and spends the rest training. Powder days in Japan are his meditation: “Be very present. If you think too much about the market, you’re going to die in an avalanche.” Money, then, is a means to buy time. When asked for a lesson to hold on to, he says, “Nothing you value will come unless you work hard at it.”

So where does it all land for the listener? 

Hayes’ journey, from Deutsche and City Banks to BitMEX to Maelstrom, has sharpened a worldview that blends hard macro with human constraints. Bet on scarcity in an era of dilution. Measure everything against Bitcoin. Demand real users and real cash flows from protocols. Expect competition to drive fees toward zero and design around that inevitability. Size positions so you can sleep. 

And remember that the goal of the game isn’t more screens or more stress, it’s freedom to pursue the things that make you most alive.

👉If you enjoyed reading the summary, head over to When Shift Happens on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform to access the full convo.