Arthur Hayes: AI Agents Won't Use Stablecoins—and the Boom Ends in a Bailout

BitMEX co-founder and Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes, now also CEO of Flop Labs, joins CoinDesk's Jennifer Sanasie and Eleanor Terrett at Korea Blockchain Week with a deliberately contrarian thesis. Hayes argues that AI agents won't transact in stablecoins, because a stablecoin's value is ultimately decided "by a bunch of dudes" at the Fed rather than by compute—setting up a fundamental mismatch between machine economies and dollar-pegged tokens. Hayes also frames the AI boom as a story of capital misallocation headed toward a massive government bailout, warning that the scale of spending carries systemic risk. On crypto markets, he explains why Korean retail looks poised to rotate back into digital assets, tying his outlook to the broader macro picture. The interview closes with Hayes handing over an outrageous prediction, capping a wide-ranging discussion that spans AI, stablecoins, monetary policy, and the next wave of retail flows in Asia.