Arthur Hayes' Latest Interview: Unveiling the 2026 Market "Script" and Key Layouts

“The market will validate the answer. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I've put my real money on this judgment,” Arthur Hayes said in a recent depth podcast interview.

This legendary figure in the crypto world, known for his macro insights and candidness, shares his latest views on market liquidity, asset price trends, and specific sector layouts for 2026.

01 Macroeconomic Script

The market is eagerly awaiting a “spell”—the Federal Reserve announcing that “quantitative easing (QE) is here.” However, Arthur Hayes points out that if investors are still waiting for such a clear headline, they are likely already behind the curve.

He put forward a core idea: the Federal Reserve is implementing a new program called “Reserve Management Purchases”.

Technically, this differs from the traditional QE operations of purchasing long-term government bonds and mortgage-backed securities. RMP primarily buys short-term Treasury bills, aiming to guide money market funds to provide funding to the U.S. Treasury through the repo market.

But in Hayes's view, “technically it is not, but essentially it is”, it will ultimately have the same effect as QE—releasing liquidity into the market.

History is repeating itself. Hayes reviewed 2008-2009, when then-Fed Chairman Bernanke launched QE, and the market initially did not believe it, with the S&P index continuing to fall until it truly bottomed out in March 2009.

He expects that the market's awareness of RMP will go through a similar process, ultimately realizing that this is a form of easing policy, which will drive up asset prices.

02 Market and Price Prediction

Based on the judgment of the shift in macro liquidity, Arthur Hayes has provided a clear timeline and price prediction range for key crypto assets over the next six months.

He predicts the potential trends of Bitcoin in the coming months: starting from January next year, asset price performance is expected to improve significantly. The market may worry around March whether the “temporary project” RMP will end, triggering a round of market turbulence. Subsequently, the market will confirm that RMP will continue, and the trend will restart.

In terms of specific prices, he expects that in the short term, BTC may fluctuate between 80,000 and 100,000 USD. Once the market generally recognizes that “RMP = QE”, Bitcoin may return to the level of 124,000 USD and quickly challenge 200,000 USD.

Hayes maintains his consistent bullish stance, believing that market sentiment may peak around March next year, followed by a correction, but the overall bottom is likely to remain above 124,000 USD.

03 Capital Flow

In line with the macro perspective, Arthur Hayes has recently engaged in a series of significant on-chain operations, which the market views as a practical manifestation of his investment strategy.

Data shows that during the recent market rebound, Hayes transferred 508.647 ETH (worth about $1.5 million) to Galaxy Digital, a move that may be aimed at selling. Subsequently, he transferred 680 ETH (about $2.03 million), intending to sell and rotate into high-quality DeFi tokens.

In response to these operations, Hayes stated: “We are shifting from ETH to high-quality DeFi tokens. We believe that, with the improvement of fiat liquidity, these tokens will outperform the market.”

In addition, on-chain monitoring has also found that Hayes withdrew 1.22 million ENA from Binance, worth approximately $257,600. ENA is one of the most successful altcoin investments in this cycle, due to its very early entry.

04 Track and Narrative Choices

When asked about the next layout direction, Arthur Hayes clearly stated that his family office Maelstrom has already fired 90% of its “bullets”, leaving only a small amount of cash to cope with volatility. Their focus has shifted to finding the next dominant altcoin narrative.

He pointed the direction of the next explosion towards the fields related to privacy and zero-knowledge proofs. He revealed that he currently holds a significant risk exposure to Zcash and believes that there will be projects in this field that will truly explode, becoming one of the best-performing altcoins in the next two to three years.

Hayes believes that 2026 is the best time to look for such projects. He has unique insights into the regulatory challenges faced by privacy coins.

He believes that the government is now more intelligently choosing to limit intermediary services, such as restricting exchanges from listing privacy coins, rather than directly prohibiting them, which makes it difficult for ordinary investors to access such assets.

In the discussion about the “altcoin season”, Hayes has a unique perspective. He believes that “altcoin season has always been happening”, and if investors feel it hasn't arrived yet, it's because they don't hold the tokens that are currently rising.

He encourages traders to rethink their strategies and focus on new market trends rather than relying on historical experience.

05 Core Logic

Arthur Hayes' entire predictive framework is built on several interrelated core logics. He believes that whoever serves as the Chair of the Federal Reserve will ultimately implement monetary policies that align with the demands of the American president, as the American president always gets the monetary policies he wants.

In his view, the U.S. economy is highly financialized, and the stock market is the economy itself. Therefore, the authorities must ensure that the stock market rises at all costs, and the continuation of the AI wave is key to this goal.

The success of AI requires more debt-driven financing, lower capital costs, and a larger money supply, a process that will inevitably bring inflationary pressures.

To avoid the politically sensitive term “inflation,” policy tools need to be “renamed.” This is why the policy previously known as QE now appears in forms like RMP.

Hayes emphasized that the change in this liquidity environment is crucial for the cryptocurrency market, especially for Bitcoin, as Bitcoin is most sensitive to USD liquidity.

Future Outlook

As of December 23, data from the Gate platform shows that Bitcoin is fluctuating within the range of 80,000 to 100,000 USD predicted by Hayes. Meanwhile, privacy and ZK track tokens such as ZEC, which he is optimistic about, are attracting more and more investor attention.

Hayes admitted at the end of the interview: “We have probably fired 90% of our bullets, with a little cash left to cope with fluctuations.” This trader, known for his accurate predictions, has already written a footnote for the market script of 2026 with real money.