Maelstrom CIO Says Bitcoin Could Reach $1 Million by 2030 — Interview
By Jihye LeeSEOUL--Bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2030 as the bust of the artificial-intelligence investment boom prompts governments to inject trillions of dollars into the financial system, says Maelstrom Chief Investment Officer Arthur Hayes.Hayes expects the cryptocurrency's strongest gains to come in late 2027 or early 2028, when he predicts newly completed data centers will expose a mismatch between spending on computing infrastructure and customers' ability to pay for it."If I had to pin it, I'd say the most explosive rally will be late 2027, early 2028," he said in an interview Wednesday on the sidelines of Korea Blockchain Week.The forecast comes as bitcoin heads toward its strongest quarter in nearly two years, though uncertainty over interest rates continues to weigh on cryptocurrency markets. Bitcoin was last up 0.2% at $83,774, according to LSEG data, with quarter-to-date gains at roughly 43%.For Hayes, co-founder and former chief executive of cryptocurrency derivatives exchange BitMEX, the longer-term bullish case is based on his expectation that governments will respond to AI-driven financial losses by expanding liquidity, increasing demand for bitcoin and other risk assets.Bitcoin's limited supply will also support its price as the supply of fiat money grows, said Hayes, He described AI investment as a bubble, saying that expanding debt obligations and falling compute prices could undermine the economics of new infrastructure.For Hayes, the tipping point will come when the massive pipeline of data centers begins operating and customers must pay for computing capacity they committed to purchasing years earlier.His prediction depends on those customers failing to generate sufficient demand and revenue to meet their obligations.Hayes expects governments to intervene rather than allow the resulting losses to flow through the financial system--a response that could require trillions of dollars.On the plus side, as excess computing capacity makes AI agents cheaper to run, that could create demand for a payment network linked to computing resources, the CIO said.Hayes is helping develop FLOP, a network intended to let participants earn tokens by supplying computing capacity for AI inference. Its main network is set to launch in the first quarter of 2027.Managed by Hayes's family office, Maelstrom is a crypto investment fund building a portfolio across venture, liquid, private equity and public markets.Write to Jihye Lee at [email protected]