Arthur Hayes: Bitcoin's Value Lies Outside Regulatory Frameworks

Crypto doesn't need regulation – something that charting the price of bitcoin over successive U.S. governments clearly shows, according to the provocative co-founder of BitMEX and CIO of Maelstrom, Arthur Hayes. Speaking at Consensus Miami 2026, Hayes laid out a straightforward thesis: fiat liquidity, precisely the printing of more units of fiat money, is the only thing that affects bitcoin's value proposition. "If you want to talk about the price of Bitcoin and what's the fair value, or what's the future price, all that matters is how many units of fiat are there today," Hayes told the audience. "How many units of fiat will there be in the future, and what's the pace of this fiat creation?"

While there's a lot of talk about traditional finance and regulators and crypto coming together to create some "bastard child," Hayes argued that the majority of people attending conferences like Consensus only want to see the number go up. What they forget, he said, is what has actually driven bitcoin's price from zero to however many trillions of dollars it's worth today. "The more money that is printed in the U.S. and around the world, the more value that bitcoin will have in fiat currencies," Hayes said, hammering his thesis home. "And it's this liquidity part of the equation that really drives the price of bitcoin, and not anything to do with politics."

Looking back over successive U.S. administrations, Hayes identified key factors that greatly bolstered bitcoin's value. This started with the bailing out of banks during the banking crisis and the subsequent money printing, which sent bitcoin "off to the races." More recently, events like COVID, stimulus checks, Biden's New Green Deal, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have driven up the value of bearer assets like bitcoin and gold. "This is the value that bitcoin provides outside of the regulatory apparatus," Hayes said. "It's precisely the reason that it does not adhere to the regulatory regime that some of you wish to put it under with bills like the Clarity Act and other things."

Hayes also touched on his track record, noting he was early to several AI-adjacent tokens, a sector that dominated speculative flows throughout 2024 and 2025. He also championed Zcash (ZEC), which rallied more than 450% over the past year. Few executives in crypto maintain a social presence as lively, chaotic and strangely insightful as Hayes', but behind the lapel-grabbing theatrics lies a track record that traders pay attention to.