BitMEX co-founder and Maelstrom chief investment officer Arthur Hayes argues in a new blog post that Bitcoin performed exactly as expected in 2025, tracking the decline in dollar liquidity while gold and technology stocks diverged due to central bank buying and U.S. government AI policy.
What Happened: Hayes Defends Bitcoin's 2025 Performance
The former BitMEX CEO published his analysis on his Substack blog, presenting what he called a framework for understanding why Bitcoin underperformed gold and the Nasdaq 100 in the first year of President Donald Trump's second term.
Hayes, who co-founded BitMEX in 2014 and now runs the family office investment fund Maelstrom, attributed gold's surge to price-insensitive central bank purchases that accelerated after the U.S. froze Russian treasury holdings in 2022.
He pointed to data showing that gold exports accounted for more than 100% of the December 2025 improvement in America's trade deficit.
The Nasdaq's resilience, Hayes argued, stems from what he described as effective nationalization of AI-related industries.
He wrote that Trump's economic platform treats AI dominance as essential to U.S. interests, directing capital toward the sector regardless of traditional return-on-equity metrics.
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Why It Matters: Dollar Liquidity Expansion Expected
Hayes projects that three factors will drive significant dollar liquidity growth in 2026: Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion through Reserve Management Purchases, increased commercial bank lending to strategic industries, and mortgage rate reductions.
He noted that the Fed's balance sheet bottomed in December when quantitative tightening ended, with RMP adding at least $40 billion monthly.
Commercial bank loan growth, measured by the Fed's Other Deposits and Liabilities metric, began accelerating in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The Maelstrom fund entered 2026 with near-maximum risk exposure, Hayes disclosed, adding long positions in Strategy and Metaplanet to gain leveraged Bitcoin exposure. He also revealed continued accumulation of Zcash, describing recent developer departures from the Electric Coin Company as a buying opportunity rather than a bearish signal.
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