Arthur Hayes is positioning for a 2026 liquidity rebound, arguing that Bitcoin’s weak 2025 wasn’t a referendum on “crypto narratives” a lot as an easy dollar-credit story. In his newest essay, “Frowny Cloud,” the Maelstrom CIO says he’s including danger through Technique (MSTR), Japan’s Metaplanet, and Zcash (ZEC) as he expects US greenback liquidity to inflect greater after a 12 months wherein Bitcoin lagged each gold and US tech shares.
Hayes frames 2025 as an ungainly 12 months for the usual cross-asset shorthand that treats Bitcoin as both digital gold or a high-beta proxy for US tech. In his telling, Bitcoin behaved “as anticipated” beneath tightening circumstances, whereas gold and the Nasdaq 100 rose for various causes regardless of falling greenback liquidity.
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He argues gold’s bid is being pushed by sovereign stability sheets moderately than retail mania, rooted in mistrust of US Treasury publicity after prior asset-freeze precedents. “If the US president steals your cash, it’s an prompt zero. Does it then matter what value you purchase gold at?” he writes, casting central banks as price-insensitive consumers.
On equities, Hayes leans into an industrial-policy interpretation of the AI commerce. His declare is that the US and China have successfully handled “successful AI” as strategic, dulling the standard market self-discipline and serving to clarify why the Nasdaq decoupled from his dollar-liquidity index in 2025. That divergence issues as a result of it units up his core takeaway for 2026: Bitcoin wants increasing greenback liquidity to regain momentum.
“Bitcoin and the Nasdaq rise when greenback liquidity expands. The one downside is the current divergence,” Hayes writes, earlier than returning to the “vicissitudes of greenback liquidity” as the first driver he desires to trace.
The Three-Pillar Liquidity Pitch
Hayes’ 2026 outlook hinges on a pointy rebound in greenback credit score creation. He cites three channels: a rising Fed stability sheet through Reserve Administration Purchases (RMP), commercial-bank lending into “strategic industries,” and decrease mortgage charges catalyzed by policy-driven demand for mortgage-backed securities.
In his account, quantitative tightening light as a dominant headwind in late 2025, with QT ending in December and RMP starting as a brand new, regular purchaser. He claims RMP “at a minimal” expands the stability sheet by $40 billion per 30 days, and expects that tempo to rise as authorities funding wants enhance.
The second leg is financial institution credit score creation, which he says accelerated in 4Q25, with giant lenders prepared to increase loans the place authorities fairness stakes or offtake agreements cut back default danger. The third is housing: Hayes factors to Trump-backed directives for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to deploy $200 billion towards MBS purchases, arguing that decrease mortgage charges might unlock a well-known wealth impact and, by extension, extra credit score.
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He ties the items along with a easy conclusion: if liquidity turns, Bitcoin ought to observe. “Bitcoin … and greenback liquidity bottomed across the similar time,” he writes, arguing that the subsequent main leg relies upon much less on sentiment than on renewed credit score enlargement.
MSTR, Metaplanet, And ZCash
Hayes describes himself as a “degen speculator” and says Maelstrom is already “practically totally invested,” however he nonetheless desires “MOAR danger” to seize upside convexity if Bitcoin reclaims greater ranges. Moderately than utilizing perpetuals or choices, he says he’s lengthy Technique and Metaplanet for levered publicity through company stability sheets.
His timing argument is valuation-relative: he compares every firm’s “DAT” to Bitcoin priced within the related forex (yen for Metaplanet, {dollars} for Technique) and says these ratios sit close to the low finish of the previous two years, after being “down considerably” from mid-2025 peaks. He provides a key situation: “If Bitcoin can retake $110,000, buyers will get the itch to go lengthy Bitcoin by these automobiles. Given the leverage embedded within the capital construction of those companies, they are going to outperform Bitcoin on the upside.”
He additionally flags continued accumulation of Zcash. Hayes argues the departure of builders at Electrical Coin Firm (ECC) will not be bearish: “We proceed so as to add to our Zcash place. The departure of the devs at ECC will not be bearish. I firmly imagine they are going to ship higher, extra impactful merchandise inside their very own for-profit entity. I’m grateful for the chance to purchase discounted ZEC from weak palms.”
At press time, MSTR traded at $179.33.
Featured picture from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com
