BitMEX co-founder highlights ongoing US banking crisis

Arthur Hayes, the co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, has taken to Twitter to express his concerns about the ongoing banking crisis in the United States and how it could affect the crypto market. 

In particular, Hayes has highlighted the failure of San Francisco-based First Republic Bank which was sold to JP Morgan on May 1, and was another massive bank collapse story of 2023.

Hayes argues that the Federal Reserve has failed to take the necessary steps to address the root causes of the crisis. He suggests that the Fed needs to cut interest rates to close the gap between deposit rates and the RRP, or the Bank of the Federal Reserve needs to accept any bank loan as collateral.

Hayes believes that the failure of another non-too big to fail (TBTF) bank is almost guaranteed with the Fed’s expected rate hike at its meeting this week. He claims that First Republic Bank has a loan book full of jumbo-mortgages made to wealthy individuals at low rates, which are now worth significantly less after interest rates have risen.

He further predicts that the next bank to potentially fail will have a loan book full of illiquid large commercial real estate loans.

The investor intends to review his sell-side research to identify the U.S. banks with the largest commercial real estate portfolios and will consider purchasing short-dated puts on these banks after the Fed meetings, suggesting that the crypto market could benefit from the potential collapse of these banks.

Were another bank to take the tumble a rally in the crypto space might likely come as well as increased adoption of cryptos as seen in the near past due to shifting investor confidence. The recent collapse of Silvergate and Silicon Valley banks saw cryptos rally with BTC and ETH setting new all-time-highs for the year.

It is worth noting that the failure of banks has significant ripple effects on the wider economy and financial markets, including the crypto market.

As the Fed continues to grapple with the challenges posed by the banking crisis, it remains to be seen whether it will take the necessary steps to prevent further collapses or whether it will simply apply a band-aid solution that fails to address the root causes of the problem.