BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes delivered a blunt message to investors following a sudden market surge, telling Crypto Banter host Ran Neuner that avoiding risk assets right now would be foolish.
His comments came just after the US Treasury moved to double the size of its debt buybacks.
Note: Arthur Hayes recent crypto trading actions have been anything but examplarary. BeInCrypto published an extensive analysis of his publicly known wallets. KOL comments and discussions shouldn’t be considered as investment advice.
Soft yield curve control refers to central bank or Treasury actions that cap bond yields without formally announcing a fixed target, injecting liquidity through indirect market intervention. Hayes described the buyback expansion in exactly those terms.
“You’re an idiot if you’re not long stocks, long gold, long Bitcoin, long the market,” Arthur Hayes said, linking the Treasury’s actions directly to renewed liquidity-driven gains.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the expansion targeting longer-dated Treasuries. Markets had been testing the 5% level in 10-year yields, a threshold many view as unsustainable for US debt servicing.
By increasing buybacks, the Treasury effectively capped yields, injecting liquidity much like previous interventions under Janet Yellen.
Hayes argued that when governments suppress bond yields artificially, private capital flees fixed income in search of scarce alternatives.
“That’s why markets ripped gold, Bitcoin stocks, right? This is the the Yellen put if you want to call it that. Uh she started this. Um, funny at the time, you know, he wasn’t this treasur treasury secretary then. You know, Scott Bessent had a lot of choice words for how moronic it was that uh Janet Yellen was issuing so much debt at the short end,” Hayes explained.
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He drew a parallel to the Bank of Japan’s decade-long experiment with yield-curve control, arguing that capped yields inevitably push capital toward equities, gold, and Bitcoin.
The immediate market reaction validated his view. The 30-year Treasury yield fell, Bitcoin broke above key moving averages near $70,000, equities rose, and altcoins turned sharply green.
Hayes called the move a recognition that authorities will keep intervening to defend debt sustainability, creating a series of liquidity injections over time rather than a single event.
With the Federal Reserve holding rates steady to support Treasury operations and additional tools, such as expanded repo facilities, still on the table, Hayes sees the policy bias as firmly pro-asset prices. He added that Trump’s focus on a strong stock market further aligns those incentives.
While acknowledging that part of Bitcoin’s sharp move reflected a short squeeze, Hayes stressed a deeper structural shift: governments now prioritize debt defense over free-market pricing of yields.
“The balance sheet expands infinitely because the market say, ‘Oh, you want to you want a capul 5%? Yours. Here are all these bonds. I want equities. I want gold. I want Bitcoin. I want anything that has a scarce supply if you’re going to create more dollars to artificially manipulate these yields.” BitMEX co-founder noted.
In that environment, he argued, holding cash or staying under-allocated to equities, gold, and Bitcoin becomes the riskier choice. Hayes said he remains heavily positioned, having stayed risk-on for weeks with significant exposure to both Bitcoin and Ethereum.
His words, which also touched on his new project Flop Labs, underscored a simple thesis for the current regime: stay long scarce assets while authorities keep printing and intervening.
“I mean, I’ve been riskon for a, you know, a few weeks now. I mean, we pumped a lot into Ethereum, bought some Athena, bought some Ethery. So, we’re pretty much at probably maximum risk, I would say, right now, uh, given our holdings and so, you know, just sitting back and watching the number go up on the screen. So, it’s nice,” Hayes said.
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