- AI will take away white-collar jobs, warns Arthur Hayes.
- It would cause a debt crisis, force Fed action, and print money.
- That’s when Bitcoin will hit a new record, Hayes argues.
Artificial intelligence threatens to destroy white-collar jobs and collapse the US economy, paving the way for Bitcoin to reach new highs, says Arthur Hayes.
In a recent letter, Maelstrom’s chief investment officer argues that OpenAI and Anthropic’s large-scale language models will put employees out of work and cause a financial recession as they will not be able to repay their loans.
Eventually, Hayes argues, the Federal Reserve will have to step in and print money to keep deflation from spiraling out of control.
If that happens, Bitcoin will reach a new all-time high.
“Deflation is bad, but it is ultimately good for credit-sensitive fiat assets like Bitcoin,” Hayes wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
His predictions may come as a bit of a sore throat for investors hurt by the market downturn that has seen Bitcoin prices fall 45% since hitting a record $124,000 in October.
During that time, the entire cryptocurrency market lost about half of its total value, or $2 trillion.
AI crash
Hayes’ argument is simple.
Companies will replace white-collar workers with AI tools, which means those workers will no longer be able to repay their debts. Hayes estimates that if enough banks default on their loans, banks will lose about $527 billion.
Such defaults risk driving all but the largest banks out of the market.
“This would be a repeat of the local banking crisis in early 2023, when three banks failed in two weeks,” Hayes wrote.
“But this time it will be even worse, because the root of the crisis is the unstoppable nature of AI, and the market believes and fears this narrative.”
As the crisis continues, Hayes argues that traders are likely to dump stocks to avoid getting caught up in a banking crisis, causing a stock market collapse.
As a result of this cascading crisis, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury will intervene to print money to avoid a repeat of the 2008 panic.
“And, oh my goodness, thank you, ma’am, it’s time to back up the truck and buy some Bitcoin or some shitty coins like it’s 2020,” Hayes said.
To be sure, the BitMEX co-founder isn’t saying this won’t happen tomorrow or this year, just that he believes it will happen.
Hayes’ many Bitcoin predictions
Hayes has a pattern when it comes to making bullish bets on Bitcoin.
Typically, these calls revolve around some kind of intervention by the Federal Reserve, which would force the central bank to pump more money into the economy.
He has predicted in the past that Bitcoin would rise thanks to the Fed printing money to bail out its Japanese counterpart, the central bank’s reserve management purchase program, lower mortgage rates and commercial banks lending to strategic industries.
He also suggested in January that the detention of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro would give the United States access to Latin American oil, curbing inflation and giving the Fed an excuse to cut interest rates.
Low interest rates typically incentivize investors to bet on riskier assets like Bitcoin.
In December, he predicted that the price of Bitcoin would reach $200,000 by March.
It’s true that Hayes has an impressive track record of predicting price movements for the world’s largest cryptocurrencies, but he’s been proven wrong in the past.
In early 2025, he joined Tom Lee and analysts at Bernstein, Bitwise, and Standard Chartered in predicting that Bitcoin would end the year at $200,000.
Hayes later lowered his goal to $150,000. Bitcoin ended the year trading at just over $87,500.
Eric Johansson is the editor-in-chief of DL News. Any tips? send him an email eric@dlnews.com.
