Arthur Hayes says Bitcoin’s macro setup is turning bullish again, arguing that wartime spending, US fiscal deficits and bank-led credit creation could outweigh fears of a smaller Federal Reserve balance sheet. Speaking at the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas, the BitMEX co-founder said Bitcoin is increasingly trading as a response to “wartime inflation,” not just the artificial intelligence cycle. Hayes framed the recent shift around a simple premise: governments are openly preparing to spend more on defense, and that spending ultimately has to be financed. In his view, that puts Bitcoin back in familiar territory as a liquidity-sensitive asset with a hard-money narrative. “Since the war has started, Bitcoin has outperformed,” Hayes said. “It outperformed NASDAQ and outperformed the SaaS stocks. And basically, I think that Bitcoin is now focusing on wartime inflation.” Related Reading: Bitcoin Fear & Greed Turns Neutral For First Time Since January The core of Hayes’ argument was not that the Fed will suddenly return to explicit quantitative easing. Instead, he focused on what he described as a likely balance-sheet reshuffling between the Fed and the commercial banking system, one that could allow officials to claim the Fed is shrinking while leaving the broader dollar liquidity picture largely intact. Bitcoin Vs. The Hawkish Fed Narrative Hayes addressed market concerns around Kevin Warsh, whom he said investors have viewed as a potentially hawkish Fed chair because of his criticism of the central bank’s large balance sheet. Hayes said those fears miss the practical constraints facing monetary officials when the US government is still issuing massive amounts of debt. “If the market believes that there’s going to be less dollar liquidity floating around the system because of what Warsh will do with the Fed, then they’ll be bearish on Bitcoin and other risk assets,” Hayes said. “This is what we’ve seen in the media talking about sort of this hawkish Fed that’s going to come into place after May when Warsh takes over. Now, I don’t believe that’s the case.” According to Hayes, Warsh would be constrained by the Treasury’s need to keep the bond market functioning. He argued that the Fed cannot pursue balance-sheet reduction in a vacuum when the US government must continue funding large deficits. “At the end of the day, when you’ve issued $38 trillion of debt and you need to fund the government, the Federal Reserve will do what it’s asked to do, which is make sure the market is orderly so that people can buy this debt,” Hayes said. The Bank Balance Sheet Trade Hayes’ central mechanism is a swap: commercial banks reduce their holdings of Fed reserves and replace them with Treasuries and repos. In that scenario, the Fed’s balance sheet can become smaller on paper, while the banking system absorbs more government debt. “The point of all this is that the net effect on dollar liquidity is neutral,” Hayes said. “There’s nothing being sold, there’s nothing being bought. It’s just a swap. It’s purely regulatory fiction in terms of who is allowed to hold what.” That distinction matters for Bitcoin because Hayes says investors should care less about the stated size of the Fed’s balance sheet and more about whether the overall system is creating or destroying dollar liquidity. If debt simply migrates from the Fed to regulated bank balance sheets, the impact may be far less restrictive than markets fear. Related Reading: Bitcoin Could Hit New All-Time High Fast On Quantum Fix, Capriole Founder Says Hayes linked that transition to US banking deregulation and specifically cited changes to the Enhanced Supplementary Leverage Ratio, which he said went live on April 1. In his telling, the rule change allows large banks such as JPMorgan and Citibank to absorb more Treasuries and repos, while smaller banks can expand construction and industrial lending. He also cited an S&P Global estimate that the ESLR balance-sheet reduction could generate $1.3 trillion of new loans. Wartime Spending Becomes The Demand Engine Hayes argued that the demand side of the lending cycle is already visible. Defense spending, critical resource production and AI infrastructure are all becoming national-security priorities, he said, creating borrowers with government-backed demand and therefore more attractive credit profiles for banks. “Why will banks have demand for loans? One of the criticisms about this analysis from some of my other macro-fans is that they claim the banking system is not creating enough loans or there’s not enough demand,” Hayes said. “Well, we have a great source of demand that is the US Department of War.” He said banks would lend to defense suppliers, resource miners and hyperscalers as AI capital expenditure becomes part of the national-security framework. Hayes described bank lending as especially important because, in his view, it carries a higher multiplier than central bank lending, estimating that around $4 trillion in credit could ultimately be created. That is the basis for his renewed bullishness. Hayes said his liquidity chart bottomed in November of last year, roughly around the same time as Bitcoin, and argued that after a period of war-driven uncertainty, the market may now be ready to move higher. “I think we’ve had a bit of a chop. We’ve had a bit of a war. Now it’s time to break out,” Hayes said. “And that’s why I believe Bitcoin is going higher. I think my end of year choice target is like $125,000, whatever, it doesn’t fucking matter, I’m wrong anyways.” At press time, Bitcoin traded at $76,628. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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A crypto analyst has highlighted how Solana could be setting up for a 10% price move based on a technical analysis (TA) pattern in its hourly chart. Solana Could Be Following A Symmetrical Triangle In a new post on X, analyst Ali Martinez has talked about a TA pattern forming in the 1-hour price chart of Solana. The pattern in question is a Symmetrical Triangle, which is a type of consolidation channel that looks, as its name suggests, like a triangle. The pattern involves two trendlines, with the higher one acting like a resistance level, while the lower one provides support. Like with other consolidation patterns in TA, a break out of either of these bounds can signal a breakout in that direction. This means that a surge above the triangle can be a bullish sign and a drop under the lower one a bearish one. Related Reading: Bitcoin Fear & Greed Turns Neutral For First Time Since January The unique feature of a Symmetrical Triangle is that its trendlines are angled at a roughly equal and opposite slope. As the price moves through this channel, its range shrinks down to a midpoint. Like the Symmetrical Triangle, there are also other triangle patterns in TA. The Ascending Triangle forms when the upper trendline is parallel to the time-axis, while the Descending Triangle emerges in the case of a parallel lower level. Now, here is the chart shared by Martinez that shows the Symmetrical Triangle that the hourly Solana price has been trading inside over the last couple of weeks: As displayed in the above graph, the 1-hour Solana price has been making its way through the Symmetrical Triangle and is now near its apex. In this zone, the range naturally becomes tight, so retests of the trendlines tend to turn more frequent. More retests, of course, imply a higher likelihood of a level giving out. Because of this reason, breakouts are generally the likeliest to occur around triangle apexes. In the scenario that a breakout does occur from here for SOL, it’s possible that a sustained move could follow. Based on the height of the triangle, the analyst has noted that this move could be of about 10%. Now, which direction could such a break occur in? Usually, for Symmetrical Triangles, breakouts are considered equally probable in either direction. This is due to the fact that the pattern involves no upward or downward bias, unlike the Ascending and Descending Triangles. Related Reading: Bitcoin Sentiment Warning: Social Media FOMO Spikes Again That said, since Martinez has made the post, Solana has seen more drawdown, which could serve as an early hint that the support level could be at higher risk at the moment. SOL Price Solana has declined to $84 after its decline over the past day. Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com