Arthur Hayes Bets On MSTR, Metaplanet And Zcash As | Crypto News
Arthur Hayes is positioning for a 2026 liquidity rebound, arguing that Bitcoin’s weak 2025 wasn’t a referendum on “crypto narratives” so a lot as a easy dollar-credit story. In his latest essay, “Frowny Cloud,” the Maelstrom CIO says he’s including risk via Strategy (MSTR), Japan’s Metaplanet, and Zcash (ZEC) as he expects US greenback liquidity to inflect increased after a yr in which Bitcoin lagged both gold and US tech shares.
Hayes frames 2025 as an awkward yr for the usual cross-asset shorthand that treats Bitcoin as either digital gold or a high-beta proxy for US tech. In his telling, Bitcoin behaved “as expected” under tightening situations, while gold and the Nasdaq 100 rose for different causes despite falling greenback liquidity.
He argues gold’s bid is being pushed by sovereign stability sheets fairly than retail mania, rooted in mistrust of US Treasury publicity after prior asset-freeze precedents. “If the US president steals your money, it’s an instant zero. Does it then matter what price you buy 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 “winning AI” as strategic, dulling the same old market self-discipline and serving to clarify why the Nasdaq decoupled from his dollar-liquidity index in 2025. That divergence issues because it units up his core takeaway for 2026: Bitcoin wants increasing greenback liquidity to regain momentum.
“Bitcoin and the Nasdaq rise when dollar liquidity expands. The only problem is the recent divergence,” Hayes writes, before returning to the “vicissitudes of dollar liquidity” as the first driver he desires to observe.
The Three-Pillar Liquidity Pitch
Hayes’ 2026 outlook hinges on a sharp rebound in greenback credit creation. He cites three channels: a growing Fed stability sheet via Reserve Management 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 new, regular purchaser. He claims RMP “at a minimum” expands the stability sheet by $40 billion per month, and expects that tempo to rise as authorities funding wants increase.
The second leg is bank credit creation, which he says accelerated in 4Q25, with large lenders prepared to lengthen loans where authorities equity stakes or offtake agreements cut back default risk. The third is housing: Hayes factors to Trump-backed directives for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to deploy $200 billion toward MBS purchases, arguing that decrease mortgage charges may unlock a acquainted wealth impact and, by extension, more credit.
He ties the items together with a simple conclusion: if liquidity turns, Bitcoin ought to observe. “Bitcoin … and dollar liquidity bottomed around the same time,” he writes, arguing that the next major leg relies upon less on sentiment than on renewed credit growth.
MSTR, Metaplanet, And ZCash
Hayes describes himself as a “degen speculator” and says Maelstrom is already “nearly fully invested,” but he still desires “MOAR risk” to seize upside convexity if Bitcoin reclaims increased ranges. Rather than utilizing perpetuals or choices, he says he’s long Strategy and Metaplanet for levered publicity via company stability sheets.
His timing argument is valuation-relative: he compares each company’s “DAT” to Bitcoin priced in the related currency (yen for Metaplanet, {dollars} for Strategy) and says those ratios sit close to the low end of the past two years, after being “down substantially” from mid-2025 peaks. He provides a key condition: “If Bitcoin can retake $110,000, investors will get the itch to go long Bitcoin through these vehicles. Given the leverage embedded in the capital structure of these businesses, they will outperform Bitcoin on the upside.”
He also flags continued accumulation of Zcash. Hayes argues the departure of builders at Electric Coin Company (ECC) isn’t bearish: “We continue to add to our Zcash position. The departure of the devs at ECC is not bearish. I firmly believe they will ship better, more impactful products within their own for-profit entity. I’m thankful for the opportunity to buy discounted ZEC from weak hands.”
At press time, MSTR traded at $179.33.
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