E142: Arthur Hayes: Buy Bitcoin Before 2028 (if you want to get rich)

Unknown Source October 09, 2025 55 min
artificial-intelligence investment startup apple meta
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54 Companies
83 Key Quotes
3 Topics
1 Insights

🎯 Summary

Podcast Episode Summary: E142: Arthur Hayes: Buy Bitcoin Before 2028 (if you want to get rich)

This episode features Arthur Hayes, CIO of Maelstrom and co-founder of Bitmax, discussing his macro outlook, investment philosophy, and strong conviction in Bitcoin as the ultimate safe-haven asset amidst global fiat currency debasement.

1. Focus Area

The discussion centers on Macroeconomics, Asset Allocation, and Cryptocurrency Investment Strategy, with a heavy emphasis on Bitcoin’s role as a superior store of value compared to traditional assets (fiat, gold, equities) in the current monetary environment driven by government money printing.

2. Key Technical Insights

  • Bitcoin’s Proven Durability: Bitcoin is highlighted as the “safest thing” to invest in due to its 15 years of “rock-solid” technology since the Genesis block, contrasting it with the high risk of speculative tokens (“shitcoins”) which often go to zero.
  • The Stablecoin Macro Narrative: Hayes is extremely bullish on the US Dollar stablecoin ecosystem (USDE, USDC, USDT) as a direct beneficiary of global de-dollarization pushback. He sees massive growth potential in the stablecoin market cap as they become the preferred dollar alternative for people outside the US banking system.
  • Focus on Infrastructure over Issuance: Hayes believes the opportunity lies not in backing new stablecoin issuers (as Tether, Circle, and Athena dominate distribution), but in the technology layer (like Codex) that allows small businesses to seamlessly accept stablecoins while meeting fiat tax and regulatory obligations (the TradFi/crypto interface).

3. Market/Investment Angle

  • Bitcoin as the Benchmark: Hayes mandates that all investment decisions at Maelstrom are benchmarked against Bitcoin. If an investment cannot outperform holding Bitcoin, the capital should simply be deployed into Bitcoin.
  • Bear Market Buying Strategy: Hayes’s firm is currently not active in seed/pre-seed deals because current valuations are too high. He predicts a generational collapse in all assets between 2029 and 2030, which he identifies as the prime time to “start buying week one” when “there’s blood in the streets.”
  • Short-Term “Shitcoin” Trading: While the core wealth is in BTC, Maelstrom actively engages in high-risk, short-term (2-3 year exit window) trading of speculative tokens with the explicit goal of converting profits back into Bitcoin.

4. Notable Companies/People

  • Arthur Hayes: CIO of Maelstrom, co-founder of Bitmax, and inventor of the perpetual swap. His investment philosophy is driven by fiat liquidity analysis.
  • Athena (USDE): Hayes identifies this stablecoin issuer as a top conviction bet, noting its governance token is poised to perform well as the project scales and potentially executes buybacks.
  • Codex: A project Hayes is advising and betting on, focused on building the functional layer for small businesses to bridge stablecoin acceptance with fiat compliance.
  • Rahul Pal: Mentioned as another figure who is “all in crypto,” often discussing five-year outlooks.

5. Regulatory/Policy Discussion

  • Political Drivers of Money Printing: Hayes bases his macro thesis on the stated intentions of politicians globally—to fund large initiatives (re-industrialization, welfare, war) without raising taxes, necessitating continuous fiat creation.
  • The 2028 Election as a Potential Turning Point: He speculates that the US 2028 election could be the inflection point where the market perceives a shift away from aggressive money printing, which would trigger the major asset collapse he anticipates for 2029/2030.
  • US Dollar Stablecoin Dominance: Hayes is a “US dollar stablecoin maxi,” arguing that global users outside the US need the dollar for its low inflation and access to US assets, not local currency stablecoins.

6. Future Implications

Hayes projects that the current environment of aggressive fiat creation will continue until approximately 2027/2028, leading to a market peak around that time, followed by a severe, generational asset collapse in 2029/2030. He believes Bitcoin will continue to outperform all other inflation hedges (like gold) until this perceived end of the money-printing era. He dismisses the idea that Bitcoin is “too expensive” now, asserting that relative to future fiat debasement, it is still “early.”

7. Target Audience

Crypto Investors, Hedge Fund Managers, Macro Strategists, and Financial Professionals focused on long-term asset preservation and high-conviction bets within the digital asset space.

🏢 Companies Mentioned

Gas Store âś… Project/Institution
TransferWise âś… Traditional Finance (Comparison)
Rahul Pal âś… investment
Etherify âś… defi
Etherify ETH âś… unknown
ETH DeFi âś… unknown
Gas Store âś… unknown
Apple Wallet âś… unknown
Because I âś… unknown
When I âś… unknown
Should I âś… unknown
Bitwise Asset Management âś… unknown
Because Bitcoin âś… unknown
Do I âś… unknown
Team Blue Democrats âś… unknown

đź’¬ Key Insights

"Number one is I can stake my ETH with Etherify, and then obviously I'm earning one, three-ish percent on that. I could take that staked ETH DeFi asset, I can borrow against it at a rate, whatever that is, right? It means just low single-digit percentage points. So now I'm earning yield on my ETH. I'm long ETH versus fiat, but I need to spend some fiat. You don't need to go to 7-Eleven, buy a coffee, or whatever it is. And now I can... Etherify will facilitate this loan against my staked Etherify ETH, and I can spend this fiat."
Impact Score: 10
"And so you saw that price go from, you know, whatever value it is to basically nothing, and it's getting completely their assets kicked by Hyperliquid and other perp-dexes that are saying, "Okay, well, the customer wants to own a part of this, and they expect that as an owner, they should receive a part of the value that we're creating by offering the service to the community.""
Impact Score: 10
"And then most importantly, is that the Hyper team said, "Okay, we're going to give all that revenue back to the token holders. We'll give a massive airdrop.""
Impact Score: 10
"And now we have a subset of projects that have done extremely well over the last, you know, two years, the true alt season, which are ones that, you know, have clients that pay real money, and that money goes back to me or you as the token holder."
Impact Score: 10
"We got to 2023, 2024, which was, "Hey, we have all these crypto VCs they're investing in these projects. They play this game where they have a high FDV, a low float, so they can pump the price, and then, you know, hopefully dump on people when it lists on a centralized exchange.""
Impact Score: 10
"I think there's a lot of opportunity for technology that's going to allow small business to accept stablecoins and at the same time be able to pay their taxes and do any sort of mandated fiat payments. What's that piece of technology that lets them seamlessly interact between TradFi and stablecoins? Codex is building that functional layer."
Impact Score: 10

đź“Š Topics

#artificialintelligence 43 #investment 15 #startup 3

🧠 Key Takeaways

đź’ˇ invest in one or two projects in this particular bucket

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Generated: October 09, 2025 at 08:08 PM