Hayes drops $10K ETH target, sees ENA popping to $0.50 and ETHFI to $2 by year-end

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has set a year-end 2026 price target of $10,000 for Ethereum, outlining the call in his latest Substack article titled "Atencion." The Maelstrom chief investment officer tied the forecast to expectations that EUR/JPY will slide from around 185 to 140 or lower by mid-2027, a move he said would force the U.S. Treasury to intervene in currency markets. Hayes also projected sharp gains for two Ethereum-linked tokens, predicting Ethena ($ENA) will reach $0.50 and Ether.fi ($ETHFI) will hit $2.

Hayes's macro framework hinges on U.S. Treasury debt management and Federal Reserve liquidity. He pointed to a $12.5 billion Treasury debt buyback announced for Thursday, part of a broader plan to deploy a $1 trillion cash cushion to repurchase bonds. EUR/JPY traded at 182.45 at the time of his writing. Hayes said U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants to sell Euros and buy Yen, an operation that would expand the Fed's balance sheet and inject fresh liquidity into risk assets, including cryptocurrencies.

The Hayes outlook frames the liquidity path as a sequence linking Japanese yen policy, U.S. Treasury operations, and Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion. He argued that any Fed action to accommodate dollar-yen flows would mirror patterns seen during prior episodes of large-scale asset purchases, with crypto markets positioned to absorb a share of the new liquidity.

Beyond Ethereum, the call singles out $ENA and $ETHFI as the primary beneficiaries within Hayes's portfolio. He did not provide a precise timeline for the $ENA and $ETHFI targets beyond the year-end window, nor did he specify entry levels. The projections were presented as part of a broader thesis on global liquidity rather than as stand-alone token recommendations.

Hayes has historically used his Substack essays to outline multi-asset macro views, often pairing FX and rates analysis with crypto price targets. His latest piece arrives as Treasury buyback operations continue at scale and as currency markets price in shifting expectations for Bank of Japan policy. The full article, "Atencion," was published on his Substack and references public market data and official Treasury announcements as supporting inputs.