Bitmex co-founder Arthur Hayes says the artificial intelligence boom is burning cash on a government backstop, and that the bigger it gets, the higher bitcoin goes.
Key Takeaways
- Arthur Hayes told Convergence host Luke Martin on Oct. 16 that AI model companies are “worthless.”
- The Nasdaq 100 fell 2.5% on Oct. 16 as chip stocks posted their longest losing streak since 2008.
- Hayes expects a bailout to lift bitcoin, which trades near $81,400 on Oct. 17.
The Arguments Put Forth by Hayes
Hayes laid out the convictions on the Convergence podcast with Luke Martin, with his four key talking points being:
- Money is being wasted. “They raise debt. They raise equity. They essentially have an implicit government backstop from the US government. And that’s allowed them to continue wasting money,” Hayes said during the show.
- Nobody is making money. “Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX” are all companies where “not one makes money“, and that “they are all backed by the US government.”
- Backstops become bailouts. “This is why the bigger the AI bubble grows, the bigger the bailout will be, the higher Bitcoin goes,” Hayes believes.
- Bitcoin is the receipt. “We are wasting money. And bitcoin is there to show us that we’re wasting money,” he closed out by saying.
What the Week Looked Like
Hayes picked a loud week to put out his message, given chip stocks posted an eighth straight down day yesterday, the longest slide since 2008, while the Nasdaq 100 fell 2.5%. Furthermore, Bank of America analysts also warned the $1 trillion AI investment boom could be following the classic boom-and-bust cycle.
The Financial Times reported that Anthropic offered Blackstone a yield above 10% to help finance a $60 billion AI chip deal. Meanwhile, Polymarket bettors flipped SpaceX back to favorite for the biggest IPO of 2026, after Reuters reported that some Anthropic investors are weighing a $1.5 trillion valuation.
Hayes isn’t alone in tying AI stress to crypto and Bitcoin.com News reported earlier this week that Blackrock CEO Larry Fink had sounded a recession alarm over AI data center shutdowns, while Bitwise’s CIO argued bitcoin can win either way.
Michael Saylor Season Is Over
The Saylor bit of his conversation (where he reiterated that the market had moved on from one of crypto’s most well-known voices) put Hayes at odds with bitcoin’s best-known corporate buyer, and it dropped the same week Strategy shares fell after MSCI’s index ruling.
Additionally, he also took aim at how new tokens were launching these days, asserting:
Who is the sucker? It’s the retail investor who bought at the TGE and watched it go down 95%,
The Finer Print
From the outside looking in, a bailout thesis needs a crash first, and the crash doesn’t spare crypto. To elaborate, over $100 billion was wiped out of the market in just the five days leading up to Friday, all while U.S. stocks shed $1.6 trillion.
Bitcoin.com News also covered Hayes’ call for a mega crypto bull run recently despite AI encryption fears. His new argument gives that bull run a trigger, i.e. the AI money has to break before Washington steps in. For bitcoin holders, the question is whether they can sit through the first part to collect the second.