Arthur Hayes, former CEO of Bitmex, expects to see significant bitcoin volatility in the second half of the year, caused by the explosion of a “powder keg” due to the banking crisis in the United States and the increase in the national debt.
Hayes, who currently runs a cryptocurrency-focused investment fund called Maelstrom, spoke at the podcast What Bitcoin Did on May 26, where he made a series of predictions about the current economic landscape and the price of bitcoin (BTC). In particular, Hayes said that he expected the cryptocurrency to reach the $70,000 mark in 2024.
“I don’t think we’ll get to $70,000 this year; I think next year is when we cross that barrier, then we hit the top [2025], [2026] and then it’s Armageddon.”
He criticized the practice of quantitative easing – increasing the money supply – and broader social unrest as the two main drivers of such an event.which could cause a drastic decline in the price of equities and cryptocurrency.
“With the banking crisis, on top of you having the federal government issuing trillions of dollars of debt because they need to finance themselves, you’re basically gathering gunpowder, which is this situation, and it’s going to explode in the third or fourth quarter of this year,” he said, adding that he does not believe bitcoin will reach a new all-time high anytime this year.
“While I think it will ultimately be good for bitcoin, it could be quite volatile both on the upside and on the downside.”
Other analysts have also made positive comments about the bitcoin price in the short term. Speaking to Bloomberg, Tommy Honan, head of market research at cryptocurrency exchange Swyftx, said that a debt relief deal may “get traders back to the table and trigger the next big rally in bitcoin’s price.”
Last week, JPMorgan strategists said that the current price of gold could imply that bitcoin hits $45,000, according to a May 24 report from Barron’s. Analysts considered that next year’s bitcoin halving supported this possible price forecast. However, they also said that US regulatory measures on cryptocurrencies and fallout from the FTX collapse “limit any upside potential.”
Curiously, Hayes also mentioned some of his personal investment strategies: He noted that he was considering staking Ether (ETH) and closely following the development of bitcoin Ordinals. He also mentioned that he had invested in Pepe (PEPE), a frog-themed memecoin that launched on April 14 and is up over 5,000%.
Hayes is known for making exaggerated price predictions. In April 2020, he warned that the bitcoin price could crash 57%, falling from $7,000 to $3,000. However, bitcoin held steady, rising 28% to $9,000 in the three months that followed.
More recently, Hayes predicted that the ETH price would hit $5,000 following the Ethereum Merge upgrade. Immediately after the successful implementation of the Merge, the price of Ether plummeted for months before recovering with the rest of the cryptocurrency market at the beginning of this year.
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