Arthur Hayes, chief investment officer of Maelstrom, has reiterated his forecast that Bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2030, or approximately 1.4 billion won, if a debt-fueled artificial intelligence infrastructure boom begins to unravel. Hayes identifies late 2027 or early 2028 as a potential turning point, when slowing data-center and computing investment could expose weaknesses among lenders and infrastructure projects. He has compared the potential fallout with the 2008 financial crisis, arguing that losses on AI-related debt could spread through banks, private-credit funds and other lenders before governments and central banks respond with additional liquidity. Hayes believes monetary expansion would benefit scarce assets such as Bitcoin. Reuters reported that AI-related borrowing in the U.S. leveraged-finance market reached roughly $88 billion in 2026, up from about $20 billion in early 2025, while the IMF cited Morgan Stanley estimates that data-center capital expenditure through 2028 could total $2.9 trillion. Bitcoin was trading at about $83,895 on Oct. 1, up roughly 0.6% over 24 hours.