Miami, FL — Crypto doesn’t need regulation — something the bitcoin price chart over successive U.S. governments clearly shows, according to provocative BitMEX co-founder and Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes.
Hayes’ thesis is simple: fiat liquidity – precisely the printing of more units of fiat currency – is the only thing that affects Bitcoin’s value proposition.
“If you want to talk about the price of Bitcoin and its fair value, or the future price, all that matters is how many fiat units exist today,” Hayes told the audience at Consensus Miami 2026. “How many fiat units will there be in the future, and what is the rate of creation of that fiat currency?”
While there’s a lot of talk about commerce, regulators and crypto coming together to give birth to this “bastard child,” the majority of people who attend conferences like Consensus only want to see the number grow, Hayes said. But they forget what made the price of Bitcoin go from zero to the trillions of dollars it is worth today, he added, hammering home his thesis:
“The more money that is printed in the United States and around the world, the more valuable bitcoin will be as a fiat currency,” Hayes said. “And it’s that liquidity part of the equation that actually determines the price of bitcoin, and has nothing to do with politics.”
Few crypto industry executives maintain a social presence as lively, chaotic, and strangely insightful as Hayes’. Behind this spectacular display lies a history that traders pay attention to. For example, Hayes has been a pioneer in the rise of several AI-adjacent tokens, a sector that has dominated speculative flows throughout 2024 and 2025. He has also championed Zcash (ZEC), which is up over 450% over the past year.
Looking back at recent U.S. administrations, one can identify key factors that have significantly boosted the value of bitcoin, Hayes said. It started with banks bailing out during the banking crisis and printing a lot more money, which sent bitcoin “into the race.”
More recently, events such as 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. “This is precisely why he is not adhering to the regulatory regime that some of you want to put him through with bills like the Clarity Act and other things.”
