Arthur Hayes bets bitcoin hits $1 million by 2030, but buys ETH now

Arthur Hayes says bitcoin has every ingredient it needs to reach a seven-figure price by 2030, but he's putting fresh capital into Ethereum right now, Cointelegraph reports.

• On the "Trade Secrets" podcast, the BitMEX co-founder pointed to a potential AI-bubble collapse, "massive" money printing, and possible US yield curve control as reasons bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2030
• Hayes said $58,000 was probably bitcoin's bottom this cycle, with the token up 22.15% over the past 30 days and trading near $77,271 at the time of his comments
• 10x Research's Markus Thielen pushed back on the same show weeks earlier, calling the $1 million target by 2030 "mathematically impossible" given how much capital bitcoin would need to attract in four years compared with the 15 it took to reach its current price
• Ethereum, trading near $2,405, is Hayes's "number one pick" for new capital because he expects it could climb 3x to 5x "pretty quickly," a better risk-reward, he said, than deploying into Hyperliquid right now

“Everybody hates it. It's the one megacap crypto that has not eclipsed its 2021 all-time high.”

— Arthur Hayes, Co-founder, BitMEX

Hayes has cooled on Hyperliquid because the trade no longer feels asymmetric. "Everybody knows that Hyperliquid is here," he said, pointing to the "massive expectations" now priced into the token, even as US President Donald Trump said Washington was working to bring the exchange onshore. Hayes, who was pardoned by Trump in 2024, dismissed the president's influence on crypto prices: "What Trump says or does is irrelevant. Look at what Treasury Secretary Bessent does. Read the Treasury, read the Fed, read the monetary authorities." He also questioned whether Trump would spend political capital pushing the CLARITY Act through Congress, arguing the median voter does not care about the legislation.exchange onshore. Hayes, who was pardoned by Trump in 2024, dismissed the president's influence on crypto prices entirely: "What Trump says or does is irrelevant. Look at what Treasury Secretary Bessent does. Read the Treasury, read the Fed, read the monetary authorities." He also questioned whether Trump would spend political capital pushing the CLARITY Act through Congress, arguing the median voter doesn't care about the legislation.

The interview lands as BitMEX itself prepares to close for good. Intokened covered the shutdown when Hayes and his co-founders announced it in July; the exchange goes dark September 23, and Hayes says the team is landing the plane on its own terms rather than winding down after a hack. He argues running a leveraged exchange is now a mug's game unless an operator has the scale of Binance or OKX to absorb the security and infrastructure costs. His Ethereum conviction isn't new either: Intokened has tracked him buying dips through a rough stretch this summer, a position that, as of late July, hadn't yet turned a profit.

Thielen's skepticism and Hayes's own record of buying ETH into a loss are real counterweights to the confidence in his voice. But Hayes has built a career, and a fortune, on being early to trades that looked wrong before they looked obvious, and his read here is unambiguous: bitcoin can wait for the slow grind to $1 million, and Ethereum can't wait for anything.

Nothing here should be taken as financial advice — just information to consider.