When the annualized basis stands “markedly above the Fed Funds rate, hedge funds will pile into the trade,” generating “large and persistent net inflows into the ETF.” That, he argues, “creates the impression, to those who don’t understand the market microstructure, that there is massive interest from institutional investors for Bitcoin exposure when in reality they don’t give a fuck about Bitcoin, they only play in our sandbox for a few extra points over Fed Funds.” As the basis collapsed, those same players “quickly dump their positions,” producing “massive net outflows” and a negative feedback loop with retail.
From there, Hayes goes back to his core premise that “money is politics.” He says it is now time for President Trump and Treasury Secretary “Buffalo Bill” Bessent “to put up or shut up”: either they deploy the Treasury to “run roughshod over the Fed, create another housing bubble, hand out more stimulus checks,” or they are “a bunch of limp-dick charlatans.”
He draws a direct parallel to 2022, when President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen engineered a huge drawdown of the Fed’s reverse repo balances. “Yellen issued more Treasury bills than notes or bonds, which sucked $2.5 trillion out of the Fed’s Reverse Repo Program from 3Q2022 until 1Q2025, which pumped stonks, housing, gold, and crypto.” Hayes says, “I have 100% confidence that [Bessent] will engineer a similar outcome.”
In the near term, however, he is cautious. Hayes acknowledges the bull argument that as the US government normalizes operations after the shutdown, the Treasury General Account can be reduced by $100–150 billion and that the Fed will end quantitative tightening on December 1.
But he points out that “since July approximately $1 trillion of dollar liquidity evaporated based on my index.” Against that backdrop, a $150 billion boost is marginal, and talk of renewed QE remains “just talk” until “Fed whisperer Nick Timiraos” signals otherwise. “The bulls are correct; over time, money printer go Brrrrrr. But first, the markets must retrace the gains since April to better align with the liquidity fundamentals.”
Hayes says he has already adjusted Maelstrom’s positioning. “Over the weekend, I raised our USD stables position in anticipation of lower crypto prices,” even though the fund is still “long as fuck.” The only token he thinks can “outrun the negative dollar liquidity situation in the short-term” is Zcash (ZEC).
The current Bitcoin correction, in Hayes’s reading, is also a warning. “The Bitcoin dive from $125,000 to the low $90,000s whilst the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indices hover around all-time highs tells me that a credit event is brewing.” He sees scope for a 10–20% equity drawdown and a 10-year US yield near 5%. In that stress, “Bitcoin could absolutely drop to $80,000 to $85,000.” But if that forces the Fed and Treasury to “accelerate their money printing capers,” he believes Bitcoin “could zoom towards $200,000 or $250,000 at year end.”
At press time, BTC traded at $90,477.
