Arthur Hayes said in a wide-ranging interview that more than 90% of his net worth is in Bitcoin, with the rest of his core exposure centered on physical gold and gold mining stocks. His macro framework is built around three moving parts: oil market structure, AI-driven deflation, and the willingness of the financial system to expand credit.
For the Iran conflict, Hayes watches the oil curve, not headlines
On the war-related risk tied to Iran, Hayes said the signal that matters most is the spread between the front-month WTI crude contract and the sixth-month contract. In his reading, a sharp move in nearby oil alongside a much more restrained rise in deferred contracts suggests the market still expects crude to keep moving through the strait over the short to medium term.
That distinction is central to his view. If oil continues to flow, the global economy can absorb the shock, even with higher costs and noisy headlines. If it does not, the situation changes fast. Hayes argued that price is the most reliable guide because commentary, isolated reports, and unverifiable claims do not carry the same weight as a market that has to assign value to uncertainty in real time.
AI is deflationary for wants, while energy keeps necessities expensive
Hayes separated inflation and deflation into different parts of the economy. He said AI is accelerating the replacement of knowledge workers, pushing down the value of many discretionary goods and weakening spending power for people losing high-paying jobs. That creates deflation in things consumers may want but do not strictly need. It is a straightforward pressure point.
At the same time, the costs tied to energy, fertilizer, transport, and basic inputs do not fall just because AI improves productivity elsewhere. If oil supply is disrupted, food and industrial costs rise. That leaves central banks with a difficult choice: ease policy for weak demand or stay tight because essential goods are getting more expensive. Hayes said the Federal Reserve will ultimately do what the US government needs, including supplying liquidity when necessary.
Bitcoin acts as a liquidity smoke alarm
Hayes described Bitcoin as one of the assets most sensitive to changes in credit conditions, calling it a “liquidity smoke alarm.” In his view, Bitcoin’s failure to consistently outperform gold or equities in recent years reflects an environment where AI is creating deflationary pressure while central banks and banks have not expanded credit enough to offset it. If money creation is insufficient, Bitcoin reacts early.
He added that even though Bitcoin held up better than some traditional assets during the war-driven market moves, that relative strength does not erase the fact that it had fallen about 50% from its all-time high. Hayes said that does not change his long-term positioning. He is not actively trading around the core holding, though he has sold some Bitcoin to buy Zcash and Hyperliquid rather than moving back into fiat.
Gold is re-entering trade, while Bitcoin depends on retail demand
On non-sovereign assets, Hayes argued that gold is quietly regaining a role in trade settlement. He pointed to data showing that the largest US export in recent months was non-monetary gold, with metal sent to Switzerland for refining and then shipped to China. To him, that suggests gold is becoming a practical settlement layer in parts of global commerce, even without a formal gold standard.
He drew a sharp line on Bitcoin’s source of value. Hayes said Bitcoin matters because ordinary people use and trade it outside the traditional banking system. Strip out the retail base, and the asset loses its foundation. That is why he dismissed the idea that Bitcoin needs a stack of institution-focused legislation to validate it. In his view, adding rules to attract large financial players risks diluting what made the asset useful in the first place.
Why he likes Hyperliquid and Zcash
Among crypto projects, Hayes highlighted Hyperliquid and Zcash. He sees Hyperliquid as a serious threat to centralized exchanges because it has pushed the DEX model closer to real product-market fit, combining permissionless listings with 24/7 leveraged trading. He also noted its planned move into prediction markets and lower fees, which could reshape competition.
His case for Zcash is based on privacy. Hayes said Bitcoin is transparent and cannot function as fully private digital cash. As AI tools and large technology platforms make de-anonymization easier, he expects demand for zero-knowledge-based privacy systems to grow.
He was equally blunt on policy and market structure. Hayes rejected the idea that Bitcoin’s future depends on institutional legislation and argued that insider trading should be legal across asset classes because markets work best when real information reaches prices quickly. Inside crypto, the area he is most bearish on is Layer 2 projects that lack real users and clear product-market fit, especially those built mainly on venture capital support.