Why Is Bitcoin Price Crashing? Arthur Hayes Isn’t Surprised

In his newest Substack essay “Snow Forecast,” published November 17, 2025, Arthur Hayes argues that Bitcoin’s sharp drawdown from its October all-time high is a simple consequence of tightening greenback liquidity as soon as derivative-driven “pretend flows” into Bitcoin have dried up. For Hayes, Bitcoin is “the free-market weathervane of world fiat liquidity” that trades on expectations of future cash provide reasonably than day-to-day headlines.

Why Is The Bitcoin Price Down?

He seems to be again to the “US Liberation Day” turmoil on April 2, 2025, when aggressive tariff strikes from the Trump administration initially sparked fears of a melancholy. After Trump “TACO’d” — his phrase for calling a truce on tariffs — on April 9, Hayes referred to as for “Up Only!” Bitcoin rallied about 21%, Ether and different “chosen shitcoins” adopted, and Bitcoin dominance slipped from 63% to 59%. Yet whilst his proprietary USD Liquidity Index fell roughly 10% from April 9, Bitcoin nonetheless rose 12%. Hayes says that divergence was not some structural decoupling, however a short lived distortion created by ETF foundation trades and Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) vehicles.

He is especially blunt concerning the spot Bitcoin ETF flows that many commentators branded as proof of “institutional adoption.” Looking at BlackRock’s IBIT, Hayes notes that the 5 largest holders are hedge funds and prop buying and selling desks, which primarily used the ETF as a leg in a foundation commerce: “They brief a CME-listed Bitcoin futures contract vs. shopping for the ETF to earn the unfold between the 2.”

When the annualized foundation stands “markedly above the Fed Funds price, hedge funds will pile into the commerce,” producing “giant and protracted internet inflows into the ETF.” That, he argues, “creates the impression, to those that don’t perceive the market microstructure, that there’s huge curiosity from institutional buyers for Bitcoin publicity when in actuality they don’t give a fuck about Bitcoin, they solely play in our sandbox for a number of additional factors over Fed Funds.” As the premise collapsed, those self same gamers “rapidly dump their positions,” producing “huge internet outflows” and a unfavorable suggestions loop with retail.

DATs supplied an identical optical phantasm. Hayes highlights Strategy (MSTR), which may purchase extra Bitcoin when its inventory trades at a premium to its underlying holdings, a metric referred to as mNAV. As that premium become a reduction, its potential to develop BTC holdings cheaply diminished. Together, ETF foundation flows and DAT issuance “allowed Bitcoin to rise despite the fact that greenback liquidity contracted,” he writes. “But this state of play is over […] Without these flows obscuring the unfavorable liquidity image, Bitcoin should fall to mirror the present short-term fear that greenback liquidity will contract or not develop as quick because the politicians promised.”

This Will End The Bitcoin Downtrend

From there, Hayes goes again to his core premise that “cash is politics.” He says it’s now time for President Trump and Treasury Secretary “Buffalo Bill” Bessent “to place up or shut up”: both they deploy the Treasury to “run roughshod over the Fed, create one other housing bubble, hand out extra stimulus checks,” or they’re “a bunch of limp-dick charlatans.”

He attracts a direct parallel to 2022, when President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen engineered an enormous drawdown of the Fed’s reverse repo balances. “Yellen issued extra Treasury payments than notes or bonds, which sucked $2.5 trillion out of the Fed’s Reverse Repo Program from 3Q2022 till 1Q2025, which pumped stonks, housing, gold, and crypto.” Hayes says, “I’ve 100% confidence that [Bessent] will engineer an identical consequence.”

In the close to time period, nevertheless, he’s cautious. Hayes acknowledges the bull argument that because the US authorities normalizes operations after the shutdown, the Treasury General Account might be lowered by $100–150 billion and that the Fed will finish quantitative tightening on December 1.

But he factors out that “since July roughly $1 trillion of greenback liquidity evaporated primarily based on my index.” Against that backdrop, a $150 billion increase is marginal, and discuss of renewed QE stays “simply discuss” till “Fed whisperer Nick Timiraos” indicators in any other case. “The bulls are appropriate; over time, cash printer go Brrrrrr. But first, the markets should retrace the good points since April to raised align with the liquidity fundamentals.”

How Hayes Positions His Company

Hayes says he has already adjusted Maelstrom’s positioning. “Over the weekend, I raised our USD stables place in anticipation of decrease crypto costs,” despite the fact that the fund remains to be “lengthy as fuck.” The solely token he thinks can “outrun the unfavorable greenback liquidity scenario within the short-term” is Zcash (ZEC).

“With AI, massive tech, and massive authorities, privateness throughout most sectors of the web is lifeless. Zcash and different privateness cryptos utilizing zero-knowledge proof cryptography are humanity’s solely likelihood to combat this new actuality.” He argues that it “ought to offend our sensibilities as disciples of Satoshi” that the third, fourth and fifth largest cash are “a USD-derivative, a do-nothing coin on a do-nothing chain, and CZ’s centralized pc,” and insists “Zcash or a similar type of privacy crypto belongs right below Ethereum.”

The present Bitcoin correction, in Hayes’s studying, can be a warning. “The Bitcoin dive from $125,000 to the low $90,000s while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indices hover round all-time highs tells me {that a} credit score occasion is brewing.” He sees scope for a ten–20% fairness drawdown and a 10-year US yield close to 5%. In that stress, “Bitcoin may completely drop to $80,000 to $85,000.” But if that forces the Fed and Treasury to “speed up their cash printing capers,” he believes Bitcoin “may zoom in direction of $200,000 or $250,000 at 12 months finish.”

Hayes additionally expects China to affix the subsequent wave of easing as soon as the US clearly accelerates greenback creation. He cites the People’s Bank of China’s current buy of presidency bonds as “the start of China QE” and notes Beijing’s anger on the US “stealing” Bitcoin from the Chinese pig butchering scam operator as proof that Xi Jinping views Bitcoin as a strategic asset. “If each Trump and Xi, leaders of the 2 largest economies globally, consider that Bitcoin is effective, why are you not bullish long run?” he asks.

At press time, BTC traded at $90,477.