Arthur Hayes Says AI Bust Could Be Bullish for Bitcoin as Dollar Liquidity Expands

A cooling in artificial intelligence investment could jolt credit markets, but the fallout may still benefit cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin by expanding dollar liquidity, according to Arthur Hayes.

In his recent essay "Safety First," Hayes, the co-founder of BitMEX, wrote that if stress emerges in AI-linked credit markets, the U.S. government could step in as a "compute buyer of last resort" by purchasing AI computing resources or by supporting insurers exposed to AI-related debt. Either response would increase dollar liquidity, which would be positive for Bitcoin and other digital assets.

Hayes linked that view to recent moves by U.S. AI companies to slow development. He argued that efforts by companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI to slow the push toward artificial general intelligence, or AGI, on safety grounds may actually reflect weaker-than-expected AI demand at current price levels.

If AI demand weakens more than expected, spending on model training would decline, reducing demand for data centers and semiconductors. Hayes said that could pressure more than $1 trillion of investment-grade corporate bonds tied to AI infrastructure, along with hundreds of billions of dollars in lower-quality loans.

He said a slowdown in AI infrastructure investment could eventually spill over into credit stress in related debt markets, increasing the likelihood of government intervention. Because liquidity supplied through such support could flow into crypto markets, a collapse in the AI investment boom could paradoxically become a tailwind for Bitcoin, he wrote.