Arthur Hayes Forecasts a Rollercoaster 2023 with a Strong Bitcoin Rally
Arthur Hayes, the former CEO of Bitmex and current head of a family office called Maelstrom, expressed his views on the future of Bitcoin.
According to Hayes, he does not anticipate Bitcoin reaching new highs this year but remains bullish from 2024 onwards.
In an interview on the What Bitcoin Did podcast, Hayes stated, “I don’t believe we will reach $70,000 this year. I think it will be next year when we surpass that threshold. Afterward, we can expect a blow-off top in 2025 and 2026, followed by a period of significant volatility and uncertainty.”
Hayes attributed this projection to Bitcoin’s upcoming halving event in 2024, which he considers a pivotal occurrence. However, when Hayes mentioned “Armageddon,” he clarified that he was referring to potential societal changes, such as major wars. He highlighted two factors, namely quantitative easing and social discontent, as catalysts for such an event.
According to Hayes, “The situation is not straightforward. We are facing a tinderbox scenario with excessive monetary supply, eroded trust, and individuals striving to secure their livelihoods.” In such a situation, he believes that Bitcoin would also experience a decline.
Regarding the resolution of the US debt ceiling, Hayes expressed confidence that it would be resolved through the usual negotiation process. However, he cautioned that the timing of the resolution could create market turbulence, as financial disruption events often occur in the fall.
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“With the banking crisis and the federal government issuing trillions of dollars in debt to sustain itself, we are essentially creating a volatile situation that may explode in the third and fourth quarters of this year. This volatility could have both positive and negative implications for Bitcoin,” Hayes explained.
Regarding investment strategy, Hayes mentioned that Maelstrom was actively exploring opportunities in ether staking and closely monitoring the emergence of NFTs on the Bitcoin network, known as Ordinals.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
