Original |Odaily Planet Daily(@OdailyChina)
Author|Golem(@web3_golem)
How much market credibility does Arthur Hayes have left? Recently, "the father of crypto perpetual contracts" and BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has faced public criticism. On-chain detective ZachXBT has also publicly questioned how much exit liquidity he has created using his followers.
Liquidating HYPE, NEAR, WLD
Starting last week, Arthur Hayes performed several unexpected sell-offs to exit at the top.
Arthur Hayes had repeatedly stated publicly that HYPE would rise to $150 in this cycle. On June 1, Arthur Hayes passionately clashed with former Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani, who had disparaged Hyperliquid, and even made a $100,000 bet with him. However, just 3 days later, Arthur Hayes announced he had completely liquidated his HYPE and NEAR holdings. HYPE fell over 13.6% that day. His sell-off indeed allowed him to exit at the peak. HYPE reached a new high of $75.5 on June 4 before starting a continuous decline, currently trading around $62-64.
Besides HYPE and NEAR, Arthur Hayes also liquidated ZEC and WLD. Liquidating ZEC due to the Orchard Pool attack might be somewhat understandable. However, his sell-off of WLD resembles a classic "KOL dumping on retail" operation involving pre-positioning, public shilling, and finally pumping and dumping.
Because from publicly shilling WLD to liquidating it, Arthur Hayes only "pretended" for 3 days. On June 3, the day before selling HYPE, Arthur Hayes publicly shilled WLD with a $10 target, suggesting WLD would become an alternative for investors who couldn't directly participate in SpaceX equity trades. After the news spread, WLD rose over 35% that day. But by June 6, Arthur Hayes changed his tune, stating he had liquidated WLD because SpaceX's pre-IPO price action was "abnormal." This flimsy explanation caused WLD to drop over 20% that day.
The difference between Arthur Hayes and "third-rate KOLs" is that he writes lengthy posts, often justifying his actions from macroeconomic and top-level design perspectives.
On June 9, Arthur Hayes published a long article titled "Reality Test" (requiring about 20 minutes to read fully) explaining his recent moves. He believes three factors will burst the AI bubble: rising energy costs due to restricted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the IPOs of three major AI stocks (SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI), and Trump turning against AI for the midterm elections.
Therefore, his family office Maelstrom holds significant positions in U.S.-listed energy producers and has sold AI-related stocks and non-core crypto assets, holding only BTC and ETH.
Don't Listen to Arthur Hayes's Words, But Watch His Actions
Arthur Hayes's articles not only skillfully use extensive economic data and charts to argue his points but sometimes also overlay political and historical perspectives, which can be quite impressive. But when you take his words seriously and invest real money following his moves, he might announce a liquidation and turn bearish the very next day, seemingly forgetting what he said the day before, while your portfolio takes a simultaneous hit.
Such operations are not uncommon. As early as 2025, Arthur Hayes repeatedly performed the "bullish one day, liquidate the next" routine. The most classic example remains HYPE. In August 2025, Arthur Hayes promoted HYPE during a speech at Japan WebX, claiming the token still had up to 126x upside potential (Odaily note: the price was $45.9 that day). Yet just one month later, he announced liquidating HYPE, profiting millions, citing the need to avoid token unlock risks.
Arthur Hayes's sell-off then occurred precisely at the peak of HYPE's previous bull run, after which HYPE fluctuated downward. It wasn't until mid-January 2026 that Arthur Hayes again made large-scale purchases of HYPE. Judging from the price chart, his entry point for HYPE was again at the low point of this current cycle.
Similar examples include ETHFI and ENA, where he publicly expressed bullish views, then sold off without warning, achieving precise exits at the top. (Related reading:You Ran First Again! A Record of Arthur Hayes's Top Exits)
Long-term followers of Arthur Hayes have summarized a methodology: don't listen to Arthur Hayes's words, but you must watch his actions; follow his entries cautiously, and decisively liquidate when he sells.
However, if Arthur Hayes continues such performances, especially cases like manipulating WLD price volatility this time, no matter how reasonable the excuses are disguised, his market credibility will be threatened. This is like a crypto version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." In the end, Arthur Hayes will surely face backlash.
He said one thing right in his latest article—"I remain an unapologetic gambler," and gamblers usually don't end well.
