Hayes Warns of Debt-Fueled AI Crash, Sees $1M Bitcoin

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, has sounded an alarm about the debt-fueled artificial intelligence infrastructure boom. He predicts that this could end in a credit crisis similar to 2008, prompting governments to inject liquidity into the market and driving Bitcoin beyond $1 million.

Hayes argues that investors are misclassifying data centers and power projects as high-growth technology rather than leveraged real estate. He believes that lenders will overfinance construction before weaker borrowers are exposed by a slowdown in capital spending, creating conditions for defaults, bailouts, and renewed currency debasement.

The scale of commitments from Big Tech gives some weight to his warning. Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Amazon, and Alphabet have agreed to about $1.09 trillion in leases that have not yet begun, mainly for data centers, almost four times their recognized lease liabilities of roughly $285 billion.

Hayes expects Bitcoin to trade between $60,000 and $70,000, possibly falling toward $50,000 first, while Ether reaches $5,000 by year-end. He plans to build a position in Maelstrom while selling out-of-the-money ETH put options.