Briefly
- The BitMEX co-founder argues that privateness may outline crypto’s subsequent commerce and disclosed a large Zcash place from his agency Maelstrom.
- In a weblog put up, Hayes ties the view to credit score growth, power costs, and U.S. political incentives shaping threat belongings.
- He argues that increasing greenback liquidity may help Bitcoin, crypto, and privacy-focused belongings.
Arthur Hayes is betting that privateness will outline crypto’s subsequent commerce, arguing that Bitcoin’s institutional success has opened room for extra adversarial belongings like Zcash.
The BitMEX co-founder laid out his ideas on Tuesday in a weblog put up the place he disclosed that his household workplace, Maelstrom, has already constructed a large Zcash place and framed privateness as an underpriced response to increasing state surveillance and sanctions enforcement.
“Trying into the longer term, this 12 months’s dominant narrative will encompass privateness,” Hayes wrote. He added that Zcash will develop into the “privateness beta,” and that Maelstrom is “already lengthy a fuck ton of that at glorious costs obtained in 3Q25.”
The stance marks a shift for Hayes, who has sometimes centered Bitcoin as the first beneficiary of macro liquidity cycles, and reframes privateness as a part of the identical macro logic as a substitute of a standalone guess.
Hayes tied the privateness commerce to a broader thesis that U.S. political incentives favor aggressive credit score growth, with power costs ostensibly working as the important thing constraint over how far policymakers can push stimulus with out triggering voter backlash.
He additional framed privateness as a downstream impact of sustained deficits, strain to maintain economies operating scorching, and tighter controls on capital flows, with privacy-focused belongings akin to Zcash rising as a further channel for crypto demand.
“The inflation that torpedoes re-election odds is of the meals and power selection,” he argued, including that “the important thing metric for People is the worth of gasoline.”
This comes because the U.S. carried out strikes in Venezuela and took President Nicolás Maduro into custody forward of an look in a Manhattan federal courtroom this week, the place he pleaded not responsible. The transfer briefly pushed oil costs to four-year lows.
“Trump clearly believes that if he activates the faucet, oil will gush forth from Venezuela into the Gulf of Mexico refineries, and low-cost gasoline will placate the plebes by tamping down power inflation,” Hayes wrote.
In opposition to that backdrop, Hayes argued that political efforts to comprise power costs go away room for continued credit score growth, supporting Bitcoin and broader crypto markets.
“Bitcoin is pseudonymous, which is nice for a lot of issues, however it isn’t as personal as bodily money," Hayes informed Decrypt in an emailed assertion. "Zcash supplies a cryptographic answer to compete with bodily money for anonymity.”
“In an age the place huge tech, huge authorities, and all-seeing AI can de-anonymise transactions, we want a cryptocurrency that may protect our privateness," he added. "That’s what Zcash supplies. The liberty of humanity will depend on financial privateness, and that’s the reason Zcash shall be price 10% to twenty% of the worth of Bitcoin by the tip of this cycle,” he added.
Requested whether or not he views this commerce as cyclical or tied to macro actions, Hayes mentioned that if fiat liquidity declines, “each crypto will go down in fiat phrases,” cautioning that whereas Zcash could outperform, “it isn’t immune from the fiat credit score cycle.”
Hayes and Zcash
Hayes has been laying some groundwork for this view since late final 12 months.
In an October tweet, Hayes mentioned he mentioned Zcash and privateness with AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant over dinner, displaying an early curiosity earlier than disclosing a proper place.
Sat subsequent to @naval at dinner. He shilled me $ZEC. I aped. All my brokers mentioned I couldn’t commerce, so I needed to have it. pic.twitter.com/vWTbn2HUNW
— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) October 2, 2025
A month later, Hayes went additional, saying that Zcash had develop into the second-largest liquid holding in Maelstrom’s portfolio behind Bitcoin, marking the primary time he publicly characterised ZEC as a serious place for the funding agency he co-founded.
Zcash was buying and selling at round $120 when Hayes posted in October, and subsequently climbed to $698 by mid-November.
The privateness coin is priced at $514 at press time, having posted positive factors of 770% over the previous 12 months, per CoinGecko knowledge.
Editor's be aware: This story has been up to date to incorporate feedback from Hayes
