Crypto billionaire warns AI is about to trigger a $527B banking collapse 'bigger than 2008'
While the AI industry's rapid rise over the last few years has prompted skyrocketing valuations on the stock market, this has consequently resulted in bad news for the world of cryptocurrency, causing fears over an impending banking collapse that could be even larger than the 2008 financial crisis.
This could soon result in a reversal of fortunes, however, as one notable Wall Street trader believes that the AI bubble is set to burst, causing a market crash and a major boon for Bitcoin.
Speaking on the Bankless podcast, as per Forbes, crypto billionaire Arthur Hayes outlined what he believes to be a 'credit event' on the horizon for what's currently dominating the tech industry and the wider world.
"If we do get an AI credit event, it will be bigger than 2008 because the whole world is in this delusion that AI is the biggest technology ever," Hayes declared, adding that "the Fed can't [out] print Moore's Law."
Advert
He also believes that this will ignite a Bitcoin price that has been steadily falling since its peak in the middle of 2025, as while the most popular cryptocurrency did hit a peak of $124,752.13 almost exactly a year ago, it's value 12 months on has effectively halved.
This is likely due to people switching their investments away from cryptocurrency and into AI stocks, with around 80% of the world's most valuable companies directly linked to the tech through development or hardware.
The crash which Hayes believes is inevitable would cause investments to redirect their funds with AI no longer matching the 'cost of capital', and the trader hopes that this will see the money roll back into the world of cryptocurrency which he would, of course, benefit greatly from.
"The implosion of the AI bubble and the money printing that's going to happen, especially in the United States [...] is going to dwarf sub-prime and it's going to take us to a $1 million Bitcoin price," Hayes indicated, but whether that actually comes true is unclear, even with the likelihood of a bubble pop.
One benefit of cryptocurrency for investors is that its value is untethered from pretty much everything else, and reflects merely broad sentiment on the markets, making it a perfect landing spot for people looking for somewhere to reroute their funds.
The more people do this the higher the Bitcoin price becomes, and while it would take a 1,500% valuation increase for Bitcoin to reach Hayes' fabled $1 million milestone, it certainly wouldn't be hard to believe if the snowball got rolling.