“It's time to go long everything”

At the Token2049 event in Abu Dhabi on 30 April 2025, Maelstrom’s CEO Arthur Hayes continued to be bullish on crypto markets, saying that his outlook remains largely the same despite a slight change in thinking.

“It’s time to go long everything,” he said optimistically.

In terms of a market setup, Hayes explained that a similar situation unfolded in September 2022, where the central banks globally were hiking rates aggressively, treasury bonds were experiencing their worst performance since 1812, volatility was spiking, and crypto was melting down, led by the collapse of FTX.

However, he noted that behind all the noise, former Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen was laying the foundation for a massive recovery.

“In 2022, the treasury pumped two and a half trillion dollars by draining the reverse repo program, issuing more short-term debts as opposed to long-term debts, and therefore pulling liquidity into risk assets. As a result, Bitcoin and gold went up massively. Bitcoin alone went up by more than 100% from late 2022 to early 2024. All of this happened when the Federal Reserve (Fed) was supposedly tightening,” explained Hayes.

He further explained that true liquidity comes from the Treasury and not just the central bank.

“The Fed doesn’t care about the market crashing, but they do care about inflation. If Trump hadn’t announced tariffs, we’d likely be seeing another 50 basis point rate hike in September 2022 and maybe even early October 2022, and the market would have continued going down.”

MOVE Index Is Crucial

Discussing the MOVE index, which measures the implied volatility of the S&P 500 index, interest rates, and inflation, Hayes said that when it goes above 140, then the policymakers respond quickly.

“With this index, it’s about a 140. You have immediate response from policymakers,” he said.

According to him, people are currently hesitant about investing in crypto assets like Bitcoin because of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have completely cracked the financial markets and have created a lot of uncertainty.

The initial announcements had caused the markets to crash. However, there was a semblance of relief after the tariffs were paused for a 90-day period.

He further stated that Fed Chair Jerome Powell does not see eye to eye with Trump and is unlikely to intervene to fix the market. Moreover, with the tech stocks crashing in April 2025, people’s risk appetite is low.

After the tariff announcement, the MOVE index recorded an intraday high of a 172, something that has happened only three times in the past and again, saw an almost immediate response in the form of Trump’s pivoting to pause the tariffs for 90 days on everyone except China.

Bessant’s Buy Back Program Isn’t QE, But Still Bullish

Talking about the US treasury's buy-back program, Hayes said that it isn't technically money printing because the Treasury uses it as a budget and supply-neutral way to influence how much leverage marginal buyers of treasury debt receive.

He explained that the US government is broke and that its spending is outpacing revenue by 22% year over year. The private sector is out of funds too, since households have blown through their COVID stimulus and cannot buy any more debt. Moreover, foreign governments like China, Japan, etc., are reducing US bond purchases due to the weaponisation of the dollar (freezing Russian assets).

Concluding his thoughts, Hayes said that the US must fund its deficits through its domestic financial engineering, meaning more hidden liquidity injections. When connecting all the dots of a structural US deficit, a declining demand for US treasuries, constant need for liquidity injection and a rising global distrust of fiat currencies, it comes to the fore that Bitcoin is destined to go much higher.

“April 9, 2025, was just the beginning. Bitcoin rallied 30% after the latest liquidity wave started. By 2028, I believe we’re staring down the barrel of $1,000,000 Bitcoin. Not because Bitcoin itself changed — but because the fiat system is fundamentally, irreversibly broken.”