The next time US President Donald Trump sends markets cratering with tariffs, Bitcoin investors won't blink

In a blog post on Tuesday, Hayes, the co-founder of BitMEX, wrote that Bitcoin's recent slump to $74,500 marked the asset's bottom, and it would go “up only” just like gold.

The next time US President Donald Trump sends markets cratering with tariffs, Bitcoin (BTC) investors won’t blink, predicts Arthur Hayes.

In a blog post on Tuesday, the BitMEX co-founder said that Bitcoin’s recent slump to $74,500 had marked the asset’s bottom, and it would go “up only” just like gold.

Bitcoin would shed its association with tech stocks and will rejoin gold in the “up only” cuddle position, Hayes said.

Bitcoin's price crossed $93,000 on Wednesday and has surged 25% from its March lows in the last few days.

The rebound is in tandem with a broader market recovery; US stock futures on Wednesday were up 0.9% and signalled that they were poised to open higher after the Trump administration signalled its intention to negotiate a trade deal with China.

But Bitcoin had reached a pivotal stage by decoupling from the equities market, said Hayes, who is also a keen follower of the US president’s trade policy moves.

Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, Bitcoin and the rest of crypto had largely tracked stocks, especially tech shares, as a “risk-on” asset. This made the cryptocurrency susceptible to monetary policy by the Federal Reserve, as well as macroeconomic forces such as inflation.

Now Hayes is part of a chorus of Bitcoin investors who say it is finally fulfilling its destiny as a store of value or haven asset, like gold. This should make it useful as a hedge against market panics.

Any investor with US stock and bonds is looking for something whose value is anti-establishment, physically that’s gold and digitally that’s Bitcoin, said Hayes.

Gold was trading at $3,300 per ounce on Wednesday and has climbed 43% in the last 12 months.

The sudden shift in Bitcoin's behaviour has long been desired by maxis.

For years, sceptics have derided its purported role as a hedge against macroeconomic risk, especially after it failed to provide a safe harbour during the double-digit surge in consumer prices in the US and Europe in 2022 and 2023.

To be sure, Bitcoin’s decoupling is still in its earliest stages and may still reverse.

Still, Bernstein analysts noted that Bitcoin's outperformance of theNasdaq during the tariff turmoil was “striking.” Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg Intelligence's ETF analyst, said Bitcoin was already showing negative correlation to stocks.

As Bitcoin sheds its tech proxy skin, Hayes said the price could reach just shy of $200,000. He previously predicted Bitcoin could jump to $250,000 this year.

Other market observers also expect a major resurgence for Bitcoin.

Zach Pandl, Grayscale's research head, told DL News this week that Bitcoin's price performance in April has validated its position as a “portfolio diversifier” and that it was bound to exceed its peak price of $108,000 this year.