Arthur Hayes on Bitcoin’s route to $200,000, holding gold and why ‘hated’ Ethereum is due for a comeback

  • May 18, 2025
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Arthur Hayes on Bitcoin’s route to $200,000, holding gold and why ‘hated’ Ethereum is due for a comeback

Arthur Hayes is a famous figure from the early days of Bitcoin, who co-founded the off-shore BitMEX exchange in 2014 before running afoul of U.S. regulators. Hayes recently pleaded guilty to failing to implement sufficient money-laundering controls, and accepted a sentence of probation and paying a fine, but early this year he received a full pardon from President Donald Trump. Today, his focus is on managing Maelstrom , the fund run by his family, but Hayes also remains a deeply influential figure in the digital assets world. Fortune freelancer Anna Tutova caught up with him on the sidelines of Token2049 in Dubai, where he shared his view on current market trends—including a prediction that Bitcoin could hit $200,000 in the near term and $1 million by 2028.

In the Q&A, Hayes also offers insight into the market for Ethereum and alt-coins, and explained his surprise 20% allocation to gold . He also offered some dire warnings about ballooning U.S. debt. (The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity).

Anna: You’ve described recent borrowing maneuvers by the U.S. Treasury as a slight of hand. Why?

Hayes explained that the Treasury has been draining its “checking account” (the Treasury General Account, or TGA) and tapping “Extraordinary Measures”—underfunded programs—to bypass borrowing limits, resulting in the TGA dropping from $750 billion to $450 billion this quarter. He points out that that’s $300 billion spent without new debt, meaning the effective borrowing far exceeds official figures.

“It’s confusing,” he says, “because we are in a period of the debt ceiling. So the US government cannot borrow net more money. There are various different ways in which they can spend money and still remain underneath the debt ceiling. January to March of 2025, the Treasury was borrowing 22% more than they were in the same period of the previous year. So the deficit is higher”.

What are the implications for Bitcoin?

“I believe that the US government has to borrow more money than what we think, and therefore, [Treasury Secretary] Bessent will have to issue more debt and therefore he needs to find a way for these individuals to obtain as much leverage as possible through the banking system and ultimately that means that there's more dollars floating around in the world because the US government is spending more money on stuff.

So that's kind of the TLDR on what a buyback is and how I believe it's positive for liquidity in the market and which is why I think Bitcoin bottomed on April 9th and will continue much much higher as the government continues to borrow money and Bessent does what is necessary to make sure they're funded at an affordable rate.”

OK