BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has made a bold prediction: Ethereum could fall out of the top 3 cryptocurrencies by 2030, replaced by AI-focused tokens powering the “agentic economy.”
Hayes believes autonomous AI agents — capable of independent transactions and operations — will drive massive demand for specialized AI infrastructure tokens. He sees this narrative as far more explosive than current DeFi or smart contract use cases on ETH.
While BTC is expected to remain #1, Hayes argues that AI assets (such as those powering decentralized compute, agents, and data) will surpass ETH in market cap within the next 4–5 years.
