Arthur Hayes keeps the bitcoin long, and his ether target needs 1.89% a day

Arthur Hayes said on 15 October that Maelstrom stays bullish on bitcoin and ether, and that he would rather trade around a multitrillion-dollar rescue than bet on the direction of AI assets. He added that he does not know whether AI-linked assets fall hard and has no wish to wager on it.

“I would rather trade around the rescue than bet on which way the AI assets go”

— Arthur Hayes, Co-founder, Maelstrom

The Arthur Hayes ether target sits inside a position that has not moved since September: a structural bitcoin long, ether at $10,000 by the end of 2026, Ethena at $0.50 and Ether.fi at $2.

What the target needs

Ether trades at $2,361.70 today, so $10,000 by 31 December needs a 4.23-fold move in 77 days. That compounds to 1.89% every day, weekends included. Ethena needs 171% from here and Ether.fi 234%, and all three fell today, by 5.6%, 12.3% and 9.8%. A target set in September met a market that has spent October going the other way, which is the condition every price call eventually meets.

What it implies

At $10,000 the network would be worth $1.22tn across 122.2 million ether, which is 75% of bitcoin's current $1.625tn. Ether has not held that share of the pair since the flippening scare of 2017, and the 2021 peak left it near half. Hayes's longer call of $100,000 to $200,000 at the next cycle peak works out at $12.2tn to $24.4tn, between four and nine times the whole crypto market today.

The mechanism he describes has two steps. An AI credit event sells risk assets first, then the liquidity response arrives and crypto takes it. Hayes has traded that sequence before, in 2020 and again in 2023, and both times the rescue came from a banking problem rather than a technology one. The IMF described the first half two days ago, counting $300bn of circular transactions between large AI buyers and weaker AI firms, backed by $650bn of debt.

The second half is the part with no schedule. A rescue of the size Hayes trades around needs a crisis first, and the timing of that belongs to central banks, and a trader holding the position pays funding while waiting for them.

What is checkable

What is checkable: the 1.89% daily rate, which anyone can track against the price. Ether needs it every day from here. We measured the last 72 hours and it moved the other way, with bitcoin down 4.06% and ether down 5.6% in a day.

Informational material, not investment advice. Prices were read on 15 October 2026, and the daily rate quoted here is arithmetic from today's price to the stated target, not a forecast of our own.