Original ｜ Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Golem (@web3_golem)
How much market credibility does Arthur Hayes still have? Recently, Arthur Hayes, known as the "father of crypto perpetual futures" and co-founder of BitMEX, has faced public backlash, with on-chain detective ZachXBT publicly questioning how much exit liquidity he has generated using his followers.
Sell out HYPE, NEAR, WLD
Since last week, Arthur Hayes has executed multiple unexpected sell-offs to exit at the top.
Arthur Hayes has publicly stated multiple times that HYPE would reach $150 in this rally. On June 1, Arthur Hayes passionately criticized Kyle Samani, former co-founder of Multicoin Capital, for disparaging Hyperliquid and even placed a $100,000 bet with him. However, just three days later, Arthur Hayes announced he had fully liquidated his positions in HYPE and NEAR, with HYPE plunging over 13.6% that day. His sell-off indeed timed the top perfectly—HYPE peaked at $75.5 on June 4 and has since declined steadily, currently trading around $62–$64.
In addition to selling off HYPE and NEAR, Arthur Hayes also liquidated his positions in ZEC and WLD. While his exit from ZEC might be understandable due to the Orchard Pool attack, his sale of WLD resembles a classic case of a KOL pre-emptively positioning, publicly promoting, and then dumping—classic “influencer rug pull” behavior.
Because Arthur Hayes only “played” WLD for three days, from publicly calling for WLD to fully exiting his position. On June 3, the day before selling HYPE, Arthur Hayes publicly called for a $10 target for WLD, suggesting it could serve as an alternative for investors unable to directly participate in SpaceX equity trades. After the announcement, WLD surged over 35% that day. But by June 6, Arthur Hayes reversed course, stating he had fully exited his WLD position, citing the “abnormal” pre-market price movement of SpaceX—as this vague explanation caused WLD to drop more than 20% intraday.
What sets Arthur Hayes apart from third-rate KOLs is that he writes detailed essays and often provides plausible explanations for his actions from the perspective of macroeconomics and top-level design.
On June 9, Arthur Hayes published a lengthy article Reality Test (approximately 20 minutes to read in full) explaining his recent actions. He believes that rising energy costs due to restricted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the upcoming IPOs of three major AI companies—SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI—and Trump’s shift toward opposing AI in anticipation of the midterm elections will burst the AI bubble.
In light of this, its family office, Maelstrom, holds significant positions in U.S.-listed energy producers and has sold AI-related stocks and non-core crypto assets, retaining only BTC and ETH.
Don't listen to Arthur Hayes, but keep a close eye on the operations.
Arthur Hayes’s articles skillfully employ vast amounts of economic data and charts to support his arguments, and sometimes layer in political and historical perspectives, leaving readers momentarily awestruck. But when you take his words at face value and invest real money based on his recommendations, he might wake up the next day announcing he’s liquidated his positions and turned bearish—as if he’d forgotten everything he said the day before—while your account suffers the same fate.
Such maneuvers are not uncommon. As early as 2025, Arthur Hayes repeatedly demonstrated the pattern of “bullish one moment, exiting the next.” The most classic example remains HYPE: in August 2025, during a speech on Japan’s WebX, Arthur Hayes promoted HYPE, claiming it had up to 126x upside potential (Odaily note: price at the time was $45.90). Yet just one month later, he announced he had fully exited his HYPE position, pocketing millions of dollars, citing the need to avoid token unlock risk.
Arthur Hayes sold during the peak of this HYPE cycle, after which HYPE entered a prolonged period of oscillating decline. He did not make another large purchase of HYPE until mid-January 2026, at a price point that coincided precisely with the low of this cycle.
Other examples include ETHFI and ENA, where public statements were made to promote the assets, followed by sudden, unannounced sell-offs that allowed for a precise exit at the top.（Related reading:You’re Off Again! A Review of Arthur Hayes’s Top-Timing Records）
Investors who have long followed Arthur Hayes have developed a methodology: don’t listen to what Arthur Hayes says, but closely monitor his actions—enter positions cautiously and exit decisively.
However, if Arthur Hayes continues to play such games, particularly in cases like this manipulation of WLD price fluctuations, no matter how reasonably the justifications are masked, his market credibility will be at risk. It’s like a crypto version of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”—eventually, Arthur Hayes will be consumed by the consequences.
In his latest article, he got one thing right—"I'm still a hardcore gambler," and gamblers usually don't end up well.