Arthur Hayes Says US Bitcoin Reserve May Be “Net Negative”

BitMEX founder and Maelstrom Fund chief investment officer (CIO) Arthur Hayes says a US strategic Bitcoin reserve could be a “net negative” for the crypto industry.

In a Feb. 6 blog post, he warned that the BTC reserve could be used as a “political weapon” if Democrats win the 2028 election and decide to sell the stockpile. 

Arthur Hayes Says US Bitcoin Stockpile Will Just Be Another Financial Asset That Can Be Sold

Hayes went on to argue that the potential US Bitcoin reserve would simply become another financial asset that can be bought and sold. 

“There would be 1 million Bitcoin just sitting there, ready to be sold,” Hayes said, adding that it will just take a “signature on a piece of paper” to dump the stockpile’s holdings on the market. This, he believes, makes the possible Bitcoin reserve a “potent” weapon for politicians.

Be careful what you wish for…

“The Genie” is an essay on my idea for how to devalue US treasuries against $BTC, while maintaining the USD as the global reserve ccy. Also why I think the US #Bitcoin reserve is a terrible idea.https://t.co/Dm8UVEHpJ8 pic.twitter.com/jwAsTzLmVR

— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) February 5, 2025

“The fundamental problem when a government stockpiles any asset is that they buy and sell the asset primarily for political, and not financial, gains,” Hayes wrote in his blog post.

He added that Bitcoin is just another financial asset in the eyes of the government, and doesn’t benefit the US in any way under the current structure of the global economic system.

Hayes Warns Bitcoin Reserve Could Be A “Set-It-And-Forget-It” Exercise

Hayes also questioned how involved the US government would actually be in the crypto space. He pondered whether the government would engage meaningfully with the Web3 community by donating to sponsor Bitcoin core devs or run nodes for the Bitcoin blockchain. 

While he did not rule out the possibility that the US government might be active in the crypto space, he said that the Bitcoin strategic reserve seems to be a “set-it-and-forget-it” exercise the way the government is talking about the fund. 

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