Arthur Hayes Sees AI's Trillion-Dollar Hangover as Bitcoin's Next Hangover Cure 🍸

Bitcoin's price slid toward $83,800 as roughly $4 billion in leveraged crypto long positions were liquidated within a single hour, according to a report by Arthur Hayes. The BitMEX co-founder frames the move as part of a broader risk-off phase he expects to precede an AI-credit bailout and a subsequent liquidity boost for crypto. The core of his argument centers on whether a multitrillion-dollar data-center buildout will first weigh on risk assets and, if it triggers government intervention, ultimately channel excess liquidity into Bitcoin ($BTC).

The scale of the planned buildout makes its financing structure consequential. Estimates cited in the report place United States AI infrastructure costs between $2.8 trillion by 2030 and $10.3 trillion by 2032, while credit platform Atrium estimates developers have already raised at least $1.3 trillion in debt. Hayes argues the buildout may leave computing capacity cheap and plentiful while saddling infrastructure providers with large commitments that depend on AI customers ultimately paying for reserved capacity. SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are among the named demand sources. Hayes said none of those companies makes money, while Columbia economist Stijn van Nieuwerburgh estimated that earning a 10% return on the spending would require $3.7 trillion in annual revenue by 2032.

That gap between infrastructure commitments and customer economics is the hinge in Hayes's thesis. Providers are expected to test those commitments when delivered, a milestone he places in late 2027. A multitrillion-dollar data-center boom could first pressure risk assets and, if it triggers government intervention, create the excess liquidity that Hayes expects Bitcoin to absorb.