**Former BitMEX chief Arthur Hayes expects the AI data center boom to crash and trigger a bailout that lifts Bitcoin (BTC), with a test possible in late 2027 or 2028.
Key Points:
- Hayes said the world is wasting trillions of dollars on AI data centers.
- He said AI companies could face their compute bills in late 2027 or 2028.
- Bitcoin fell below $84,000 on Wednesday and trades about a third below its record.
Hayes AI Warning
Hayes, co-founder and chief investment officer of crypto investment firm Maelstrom, said humanity is wasting trillions of dollars on AI data centers as technology companies race to secure computing power.
He spoke at the Gamma Prime Investing Conference in Singapore, in remarks published Wednesday.
The buildout will eventually leave computing power cheap and plentiful, he added. SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are among the companies driving demand for that computing power, and none of them makes money, according to Hayes. Once the data centers under construction are finished, infrastructure providers will seek payment for the capacity those companies committed to, a bill he said could arrive in late 2027 or 2028.
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Bitcoin Bailout Bet
Every major technology rollout in financial history has been overbuilt, Hayes argued, and investors who position for the bailouts that follow stand to benefit, as they did after the 2008 financial crisis. "There always is a crash, and there always is a bailout," he said.
He expects Bitcoin and other crypto assets to absorb the excess liquidity a rescue would release.
A Brookings Institution study published in September projected U.S. spending on AI infrastructure at $10.3 trillion between 2025 and 2032, a measure of the sums at stake. Hayes also outlined the opposing case, in which AI becomes useful enough over the next 12 months for demand to make AI companies profitable. He said he dislikes shorting AI stocks, and his new venture Flop, an AI-agent payments project due in the first quarter of 2027, plans a spot market for the cheap compute he expects.
Bitcoin Market Backdrop
Bitcoin fell from about $85,500 to below $84,000 early Wednesday, and exchanges liquidated $403.58 million in leveraged crypto long positions within one hour, according to CoinGlass data.
The coin trades roughly a third below its record of $126,080, set on Oct. 6, 2025, and U.S. spot Bitcoin funds shed $89.9 million on Monday.
Hayes has made versions of this argument for months. In an early August essay, he described the AI boom as a credit bubble resembling 2008 and predicted the government response would send Bitcoin to $1 million. He said then that Bitcoin would likely trade between $60,000 and $70,000 in the near term, with a possible drop to $50,000, well below Wednesday's level near $84,000.
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