Bitcoin Billionaire Reveals His Current Investing Strategy | Arthur Hayes

**Anthony Pompliano** (0:00)
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**Arthur Hayes** (0:58)
If Bitcoin has no retail bent, Bitcoin is worthless. And I think that's what people don't understand, which is why I say, call these bills. Who cares? Just decay every single one of them. I hope Trump vetoes every single one of them. We don't need it. We didn't need it in 2009 We didn't need it in 2018 We certainly don't need it in 2026

**Anthony Pompliano** (1:15)
What's going on guys? Ted, we've got a great conversation with Arthur Hayes. He is the Chief Investment Officer at Maelstrom. And in this conversation, he's going to explain what's going on in the macro environment, how the Iran war is likely to impact inflation, deflation, gold, Bitcoin, and other assets in the traditional market. And then we get deep into some of the crypto stuff that he's really excited right now. Hyperliquid, Zcash, prediction markets. And then Arthur tells us that he thinks that insider trading should be legal. And his explanation is going to blow your mind. It's really going to make you think much more critically about what he's talking about and why he believes that. Here's my latest conversation with Arthur Hayes. All right, Arthur, let's just start with the Iran war. Obviously, we keep going back and forth. The war's on, the war's off. We're going to have a ceasefire. We're not going to have a ceasefire. Oil spikes, everyone's freaking out. What's your read on what's actually happening here and should investors be worried?

**Arthur Hayes** (2:01)
So basically, I have a chart up that I made on my Bloomberg, and it's a spread between the first and the sixth contract out in the future for WTI oil futures prices, right? And so I want to know the spread between the two. So obviously, they pretty much track each other up until, was it February 28th, whenever the war started. Front month blows out to the upside because obviously, we have this supply disruption, shut-ins, and ability for lots of takers to get through the straight. And obviously, pretty much the spot price of oil is very expensive. But the back end, yes, it's gone up a bit, but it hasn't got up nearly as much because I think the market assumes, whether or not that's the right assumption or not, that over the short to medium term, some accommodation is going to be made and oil will go through the straight. And so that's why this back end oil futures prices are not as nearly as high as the front end. And so this is the spread that I'm tracking. All that matters is will the oil go through the straight or not. It's very unfortunate that there's all these people dying in the Middle East, but I'm sure for most of your readers, they don't live there, they have no family members there, they could give two about what happens in the Middle East as long as gas price is not $6 a gallon. Right? So that's all that matters for the most majority of the people around this world is, can I get on my flight? Is food cheap? Right? Can I go about my life in the way I was going about it before this conflict started? If the oil flows and there are still Israelis and Iranians and Lebanese and people all around the Middle East dying, nobody gives a flying fuck. But if the oil is not flowing, we got a problem. And so that's why only chart that I look at for the Iran war is, what is the spread between those two contracts? If back end oil prices start ratcheting higher, we know that oil is not going through the strait. And whatever toll or however you got to pay the Iranian generals to get your oil through the strait, if you can do it and the back end oil prices stay contained, we're okay. If that's not happening, then we got a bigger problem. And so that's how I framed the Iran war. This ceasefire, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. But if the IRGC, if the general say, for whatever reason, it's working enough for them to keep the oil flowing through the strait, and it's working enough for the Trump administration to not essentially destroy a country of 90 million people with nuclear weapons or whatever the fuck they're going to do and deal with the pushback from other nations where that's kind of fucked up, which you did, then the death and the destruction might continue in the Middle East and it doesn't fucking matter.