arthurhayes

Arthur Hayes answered the claims that he used followers as exit liquidity on HYPE, NEAR, and WLD, arguing the sales reflected an "AI jitters" macro thesis, not sentiment.
Key Takeaways
ZachXBT alleged Hayes used followers as exit liquidity across NEAR, HYPE, ZEC, and WLD.
Hayes says he reports his own trades and never advised anyone to buy or sell.
A macro thesis shift Hayes calls "AI jitters," not sentiment, drove the sales.
Hayes still rates HYPE a top crypto product; the sale was timing, not conviction.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and Chief Investment Officer of Maelstrom, has pushed back on accusations that he used his audience as exit liquidity. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph's Giovanni Pigni, Hayes addressed on-chain investigator ZachXBT's claim that he publicly promoted HYPE, NEAR, and WLD before dumping his positions, and laid out the macro thesis behind the sales.
The Accusation
The dispute began when ZachXBT questioned in X the timing of Hayes's exits. After Hayes unwound positions in NEAR, HYPE, ZEC, and WLD within roughly two weeks of publicly endorsing them, the investigator asked on X how much "exit liquidity was created from your followers over the past couple days," listing the tokens in sequence. The sequence drew scrutiny because each sale followed bullish public commentary that had drawn retail attention to the assets.
https://twitter.com/zachxbt/status/2063119034925895988
Hayes Responds
Hayes was direct in his defense, drawing a line between reporting his trades and advising others. "I'm not a money manager for anyone other than myself. I'm not a financial advisor. I never claimed to be," he said. He challenged ZachXBT to find a single post where he told followers to buy or sell anything. "I tell people what I am doing with my portfolio. What you choose to do with that information is up to you."
On why he posts his trades publicly at all, Hayes was blunt about his incentives. "At the end of the day, I'm in the attention business. My goal is to bring attention to a thesis. Whether you agree with me or disagree with me is not the point."
The Real Reason: "AI Jitters"
Hayes framed the sales as a macro thesis shift rather than a change in sentiment toward the individual tokens. He said he developed what he calls "AI jitters," concluding that the same liquidity that would normally drive crypto markets had been entirely absorbed by the AI trade. He traced it to first principles: roughly $1.5 trillion in AI-related debt was issued between 2022 and 2026, with 75 to 80% of that concentrated from 2025 onward. "A lot of dollars were created and they all went to finance AI and they didn't make their way to Bitcoin," he said. "That's why we suffered from October 2025 to the present."
Three specific risks drove the decision to exit. The first is energy prices: the longer the US-Iran conflict restricts Strait of Hormuz flows, the more commodity inventory must be rebuilt once a deal is reached, pushing oil and gas structurally higher. Higher energy costs raise the cost per AI token, which Hayes argues decelerates usage growth and undermines the AI earnings narrative.
The second is US politics. Hayes argued Trump may be forced to turn rhetorically against AI companies to win undecided voters before November, tapping into fears of job displacement and anger over data-center buildouts. "If I created the AI tech bros, I can destroy the AI tech bros," he said, framing the likely move as pure rhetoric, while adding that markets would react regardless: "Markets take politicians literally rather than seriously."
The third is a supply wall. Hayes expects SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI to list at trillion-dollar-plus valuations around September, creating an absorption problem as lockups expire alongside the new listings. He characterized the SpaceX structure bluntly as "a low float, high FDV shitcoin." His summary of the overall stance: "The last thing you want to do is have to sell into a falling market. Even if it rallies past where I sold it, so what? These risks are there."
Zcash Was Different
Hayes separated ZEC from the macro-driven sales, calling it a trust violation rather than a thesis call. After the Orchard Pool bug was discovered and patched, he said he could not hold the position without formal verification that no unauthorized minting occurred.
"I cannot hold that in good conscience if there's no formal verification that a bug like this did not result in some sort of minting." He credited the researcher who found and patched the bug with likely doing everything correctly, but held the line on his own standard: "We have to be perfect. I'm not going to hold the amount of money we were holding in Zcash if my belief of perfection has been violated." He left open a return at higher prices if the issue is formally resolved.
https://youtu.be/EttFw0yYr-Y?t=377
Still a Believer in Hyperliquid
Despite selling HYPE, Hayes was emphatic that his exit was about timing, not the project. "I believe that hype is one of the best products ever made in crypto. It still is. It has great product market fit. And it's one of the only projects that makes money and then hands money back to token holders," he said.
On valuation, he noted Maelstrom originally entered around 9x earnings on circulating supply rather than fully diluted value, with current multiples near 20x. He compared that favorably to Coinbase at 60x, Robinhood at 45x, and CME at roughly 25x, concluding, "On a pure multiples basis, hype is undervalued." The sale, he maintained, was a liquidity-timing call, not a change in conviction.
The Post-AI-Bubble Case for Bitcoin
Looking past the immediate caution, Hayes sketched two paths if the AI bubble bursts: emergency money printing that benefits Bitcoin as a new narrative cycle begins, or a financial crisis triggered by over-leveraged second and third-tier AI companies unable to service their debt. Either way, he expects Bitcoin to outperform AI stocks once the dust settles, but not before. "People will be done with AI. It had a massive correction. They want something else. And buffered by more printed money, Bitcoin is going to outperform."
His framework for choosing altcoins going forward is narrow: clear revenue-generating mechanisms, actual paying clients, and profit that flows back to token holders through buybacks or burns. "If you could accomplish all those things, you'll be like Hyperliquid."
The Unresolved Question
The exchange leaves a genuine tension unresolved. Hayes's macro reasoning is internally consistent and his thesis predates the sales, but the compression is what drew scrutiny: four publicly endorsed positions fully exited within roughly two weeks of the endorsements.
His defense, that he reports rather than advises, is accurate to how he frames his posts, yet it does not fully address ZachXBT's point about the asymmetry between a large account's reach on the way up and its speed on the way out. Readers can weigh both: a coherent macro case for de-risking, and a timing pattern that invites exactly the question the investigator raised.
#ArthurHayes

This is Arthur Hayes 😈
Co-founder of the #BitMEX exchange
This dark-hued dude is very #bullish about $HYPE and will hit $150🚀
So what now, #ArthurHayes I sold all the $HYPE I was holding.💰
What's the game plan?
Gotta take care of the 2 Ls below.👯‍♀️
You better believe #ArthurHayes that something's about to go down, fam.🔥
I sacrificed everything for you, my love.
You sacrificed for 2 weird Ls, leaving me with an L.