Arthur Hayes once again reinforced one of his most radical long-term predictions for the crypto market. He still believes that as the debt-driven AI boom may encounter troubles, Bitcoin has the potential to rise to $1 million by 2030.

According to reports, this chief investor from Maelstrom believes that the end of 2027 or the beginning of 2028 could be a potential turning point. By then, the slowdown in AI infrastructure spending may expose weaknesses in the massive credit used to finance data centers, chips, and computing infrastructure.

Why a collapse of AI could be beneficial for Bitcoin

Rather than saying that Hayes's argument is about AI company suddenly becoming unprofitable, it's more about what will ultimately happen to the debt accumulated during the period of infrastructure prosperity.

In a previous article, he compared this situation to the financial crisis of 2008, rather than drawing parallels with the bursting of the internet bubble, and argued that the greatest vulnerabilities might lie with lenders and infrastructure projects, rather than with the largest technology companies.

Hayes believes that monetary expansion will ultimately benefit scarce assets such as Bitcoin and help drive BTC towards its set goal of $1 million.

The International Monetary Fund also expressed similar concerns earlier this year. Citing estimates from Morgan Stanley, IMF indicates that by 2028, data center capital expenditures could reach $2.9 trillion. This is far higher than the cash flow that hyperscale cloud service providers can provide, thereby increasing the demand for private credit, corporate debt, and securitization.

Why 2027 May Become a Critical Year

Hayes It is anticipated that the announced growth rate of AI capital expenditure will begin to slow down in the second half of 2027, which may expose projects that are based on overly optimistic demand assumptions.

This means that his predictions for Bitcoin rely heavily on a series of events, rather than just the continued increase in the adoption rate of cryptocurrencies: AI slowdown in spending, emergence of credit losses, policymakers responding with greater liquidity, and subsequently Bitcoin benefiting from the resulting monetary expansion.

Currently, Bitcoin has shown a certain level of strength. On October 1st, the trading price of BTC was around $83,895, with an increase of about 0.6% in the past 24 hours.