BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes says the debt-fueled AI infrastructure boom could end in a 2008-style credit crisis, and predicts the government liquidity response would push Bitcoin to $1 million or higher. Reuters figures cited by Cointelegraph show Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Amazon and Alphabet have committed about $1.09 trillion to future data-center leases, with Oracle's debt load standing out as the most strained.
Hayes bets on a 2008-style unwind
Arthur Hayes, the BitMEX co-founder, said the debt-fueled AI infrastructure boom could end in a 2008-style credit crisis, one he expects would trigger a government liquidity response large enough to push Bitcoin to $1 million or higher. In a Tuesday blog post, he said investors have mistakenly treated data-center and power-infrastructure spending as high-growth technology investment rather than leveraged real estate.
According to Cointelegraph, Hayes described the boom as a "credit story like 2008 and not an earnings story like 2000". He expects lenders to keep financing construction until a slowdown in AI capital expenditure exposes weaker borrowers.
Price targets: $50,000 downside, $1M upside
Hayes said Bitcoin could stay range-bound between $60,000 and $70,000, with possible downside to $50,000, before the credit cycle and its liquidity response drive a recovery. He also forecast Ether reaching $5,000 by year-end, saying Maelstrom intends to build a position while selling out-of-the-money ETH put options.
Coinpedia reported that Hayes expects the fallout to push central banks toward monetary easing. He said the added liquidity could feed a new Bitcoin and broader crypto bull cycle.
Big Tech's $1 trillion in future leases
Hayes' thesis follows a Tuesday Reuters report, cited by Cointelegraph, that Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Amazon and Alphabet have committed about $1.09 trillion to leases that have not yet started, primarily for data centers. That is nearly four times the roughly $285 billion in lease liabilities the five companies have already recognized, though the $1.09 trillion cannot simply be treated as debt because it represents undiscounted payments spread across several years.
The strain is not evenly spread. Oracle's debt stood at about 4.3 times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, while Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta held ratios below one. S&P Global analyst Andrew Chang said the mismatch between Oracle's 15-to-19-year data-center leases and its five-year customer contracts poses a key risk.
Sources: Cointelegraph.com News, Coinpedia Fintech News (snippet-based)
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