Maelstrom, the investment fund founded by Arthur Hayes, enters 2026 with what Hayes calls “near maximum risk” exposure, expanding on an aggressive stance taken in the second half of last year and aiming for minimal exposure to stablecoins.
Hayes said Maelstrom remains immersed in risk assets, but with a refined focus on privacy coins like zcash. and emerging decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens that now lead the portfolio, in an essay published on Tuesday.
“Maelstrom entered 2026 at near maximum risk,” Hayes wrote. “While we will continue to invest excess cash generated from various financial operations in Bitcoin, our stable dollar position is very low.”
The stance marks a sharp shift from Maelstrom’s public positioning early last year, when Hayes predicted the price of bitcoin would fall as low as $70,000 in a “mini financial crisis” before quantitative easing resumed.
In May 2025, Hayes confirmed that Maelstrom “de-risked, increased fiat” in late January. However, the fund began to add risk aggressively, reaching a “long high in terms of direct cryptocurrency exposure” in April, when bitcoin briefly fell below $85,000 due to Trump’s so-called Liberation Day tariffs.
By summer, the fund was “backing the truck” of what it framed as a new altcoin cycle. That high-conviction stance didn’t fade as the year progressed, and Hayes expanded into positions in privacy coins that he said were at bargain prices.
In December, Hayes said it was “time to go shopping” when the Fed’s rate cuts and expansion of reserves began, and said Maelstrom was “busy loading up on money.”
Hayes, considered one of the cryptocurrency industry’s most influential macroeconomic commentators, is now betting on the same macro playbook that continues to drive up cryptocurrency prices: rising nominal GDP, US deficit spending, and what he sees as inevitable money printing by the Federal Reserve.
He argues that this wave of liquidity, driven in part by geopolitical moves such as the US intervention in Venezuela, will broadly support cryptocurrencies, but will especially reward riskier plays in lesser-known tokens.
The thesis is based on the United States pumping credit into the economy in an attempt to keep oil prices under control.
Hayes says Maelstrom’s performance in 2025 was profitable but uneven, with strong returns from tokens like BTC, HYPE and PENDLE, and costly missteps in others, like PUMP. It now plans to rely on “credible” narratives supported by the broader liquidity environment.
The change comes as chain abstraction stablecoin startup River revealed that it secured a strategic investment from Maelstrom, although it did not reveal specific figures.
