Arthur Hayes Explains Why Complaints About Bitcoin’s Recent Performance Miss the Point

Arthur Hayes believes the current crypto bull market has further to run, supported by global monetary trends he sees as only in their early stages.

Speaking in a recent interview with Kyle Chassé, a longtime bitcoin and Web3 entrepreneur, the BitMEX co-founder and current Maelstrom CIO argued that governments around the world are far from finished with aggressive monetary expansion.

He pointed to U.S. politics in particular, saying that President Donald Trump’s second term has not yet fully unleashed the spending programs that could arrive from mid-2026 onward. Hayes suggested that if expectations for money printing become extreme, he may consider taking partial profits, but for now he sees investors underestimating the scale of liquidity that could flow into equities and crypto.

Hayes tied his outlook to broader geopolitical shifts, including what he described as the erosion of a unipolar world order. In his view, such periods of instability tend to push policymakers toward fiscal stimulus and central bank easing as tools to keep citizens and markets calm.

He also raised the possibility of strains within Europe — even hinting that a French default could destabilize the euro — as another factor likely to accelerate global printing presses. While he acknowledged these policies eventually risk ending badly, he argued that the blow-off top of the cycle is still ahead.

Turning to bitcoin, Hayes pushed back on concerns that the asset has stalled after reaching a record $124,000 in mid-August.

He contrasted its performance with other asset classes, noting that while U.S. stocks are higher in dollar terms, they have not fully recovered relative to gold since the 2008 financial crisis. Hayes pointed out that real estate also lags when measured against gold, and only a handful of U.S. technology giants have consistently outperformed.

When measured against bitcoin, however, he believes all traditional benchmarks appear weak.

Hayes’ message was that bitcoin’s dominance becomes even clearer once assets are viewed through the lens of currency debasement.

For those frustrated that bitcoin is not posting fresh highs every week, Hayes suggested that expectations are misplaced.

In his telling, investors from the traditional world and those in crypto actually share the same premise: governments and central banks will print money whenever growth falters. Hayes says traditional finance tends to express this view by buying bonds on leverage, while crypto investors hold bitcoin as the “faster horse.”

His conclusion is that patience is essential. Hayes argued that the real edge of holding bitcoin comes from years of compounding outperformance rather than short-term speculation.

Coupled with what he sees as an inevitable wave of money creation through the rest of the decade, he believes the present crypto cycle could stretch well into 2026, far from exhausted.