Hayes: AI credit surge is boosting Bitcoin

Arthur Hayes, former BitMEX CEO and current CIO at Maelstrom, wrote in a recent newsletter that the global AI arms race has triggered a historic expansion of fiat credit and identified Bitcoin as a main beneficiary.

Hayes said nation-states treat AI spending as a survival contest and that the scale of investment now requires sustained credit growth. He wrote that most U.S. AI capital expenditure so far has been funded from operating cash flow at the largest software firms, but that source is becoming exhausted. “The scale of current and future CAPEX spending now requires a growth in funding via the credit channel,” he wrote.

Hayes pointed to policy shifts in major economies. He noted Chinese authorities are redirecting lenders away from real estate toward technology projects, and he said both the Federal Reserve and the People’s Bank of China have eased financial conditions to facilitate the AI build-out. He cited Jevons Paradox to explain why computing demand can rise even as models become more efficient: greater efficiency can lower cost per unit and lead to higher overall use.

Researchers at Simple Mining echoed the view that AI capital expenditure is effectively a national-security concern that will push firms toward bank lending. The researchers argue hyperscalers will exhaust free cash flow financing and tap commercial bank balance sheets, and they estimate commercial bank lending can carry a multiplier roughly three times larger than central bank lending.

The Pentagon reinforced the security framing on May 1 by signing AI deployment contracts with eight major contractors, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Nvidia, OpenAI, Reflection AI, SpaceX and Oracle.

David Sacks, a White House adviser on AI and crypto, has projected AI capex will add about a 2% tailwind to U.S. GDP this year and could exceed 3% next year. He wrote that “stopping progress in AI would be equivalent to halting the US economy.”

Not all observers agree with the national-security rationale. Bitcoin advocate Simon Dixon criticized the sequence as a manufactured crisis to justify emergency money creation, arguing the U.S. national debt will finance what he called an AI bailout and that energy companies will profit. He added that “a crisis is needed to justify the Fed’s bond purchases.”

Hayes warned the expansion may not be durable and identified potential triggers for a reversal. He said an oversized AI initial public offering or a major merger could puncture the boom. He also pointed to political pressure, rising electricity and commodity costs, and populist responses ahead of the U.S. midterm elections as factors that could curb financing. Until such checks appear, he expects fiat supply to continue rising.

On Bitcoin, Hayes wrote that the cryptocurrency bottomed near $60,000 earlier this year and described a return to $126,000 as “almost certain.” He said momentum would accelerate once Bitcoin cleared $90,000, which would force short sellers to cover. Hayes said investors are watching AI infrastructure spending, central bank policy, electricity markets and upcoming technology IPOs for early signs the cycle is turning.