Highlight Clip: Arthur Hayes: Focusing on Established DeFi with Cash Flows in the Next Cycle

Arthur Hayes: Focusing on Established DeFi with Cash Flows in the Next Cycle

On October 13, 2026, Maelstrom co-founder Arthur Hayes said in an interview with The Rollup that market confidence should be grounded in cash flows. He favors projects with real paying customers that return earnings to token holders. Hayes believes AI agents will use time-tested protocols, highlighting projects that have survived since DeFi Summer in 2020 and continue to make money. Despite steep price declines, these projects remain widely used, have reasonable P/E ratios, and offer composability. He does not expect the next wave of opportunities to come primarily from newly launched projects, arguing that the tokens he expects to rise tenfold are already tradable today.

WuBlockchain notes that Arthur Hayes' market forecasts have had a low historical accuracy rate and that his views frequently change. Readers are advised to focus on his analytical framework rather than specific price targets or timing predictions. — link