Bitcoin should be able to steal some “juice” back from gold and the Nasdaq in 2026, with several catalysts supporting the idea of US dollar liquidity expansion.
Bitcoin will likely reach new all-time highs despite poor performance against gold and tech stocks last year, according to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, citing the potential expansion of monetary conditions.
“If gold and the Nasdaq have the juice, how is Bitcoin going to get its groove back? Dollar liquidity must expand for that to happen,” Hayes in a post on Wednesday. “Obviously, I believe it will in 2026,” Hayes said.
Hayes pointed to several catalysts that would support a “drastic increase” in dollar liquidity in 2026, such as the expansion of the US Federal Reserve’s balance sheet through “money printing,” mortgage rates falling as liquidity continues to loosen, and commercial banks becoming more willing to lend to US government-backed strategic industries.
US will continue to “flex its military muscle,” says Hayes
“The US will continue to flex its military muscle, and to do so requires the production of weapons of mass destruction financed by the commercial banking system,” Hayes said.
Monetary expansion is generally bullish for Bitcoin, as investors are drawn to riskier assets like cryptocurrencies in anticipation of the US dollar losing value to inflation.
Hayes said that while dollar liquidity declined in 2025 and Bitcoin fell accordingly, the Nasdaq did not follow suit because artificial intelligence (AI) had been “nationalized by both China and America.”
“Through executive orders and government investment, Trump is blunting the free market signals so that capital, irrespective of the real return on equity, floods into everything related to AI,” he said.
Tech stocks were the top-performing sector for 2025
Technology stocks were the top-performing sector in the S&P 500 in 2025, a total return of 24.6%, 6.6% higher than the S&P 500 Index’s overall return of 18%.
Bitcoin () declined 14.40% in 2025, while gold soared 44.40% across the year, to Curvo data.
“The liquidity didn’t support our crypto portfolios. But let’s not draw the wrong conclusions from Bitcoin’s 2025 underperformance. It was as it always is, a liquidity story,” Hayes said.
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Hayes said that Bitcoin is “monetary technology” and is only valuable in relation to the amount of fiat debasement.
“This alone guarantees that Bitcoin’s value is greater than zero. But for Bitcoin to be worth close to 100,000 United States of American Dollars requires continuous fiat monetary debasement,” Hayes added.
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