Arthur Hayes Dumps Worldcoin Days After Maelstrom Pitch

Arthur Hayes sold his Worldcoin (WLD) holdings and announced the exit on X, posting to roughly 800,000 followers that he had dumped the token. The post came days after a Maelstrom researcher highlighted WLD as a proxy for large artificial-intelligence initial public offerings.

Maelstrom researcher Lukas Ruppert described Worldcoin as an “overlooked” bet on AI mega-IPOs and projected WLD could reach $5 by August in a note published Wednesday. The note preceded a short price rally: WLD rose to about $0.60 on June 5 and then fell to roughly $0.40 by June 7, when Hayes posted his exit.

In two posts on X, Hayes shared a falling chart for a SpaceX pre-IPO perpetual futures contract and wrote, “This chart is going in the wrong direction.” He followed with, “Dumped WLD. I’m out. See y’all at the clerb.” Hayes had earlier posted that he planned to hold WLD through the SpaceX IPO expected to list on Nasdaq on June 12.

Market data show WLD experienced notable volatility in the week around the Maelstrom note and Hayes’s posts. Traders and on-chain activity moved in and out of the token amid the short-term price swings.

The Worldcoin sale adds to a recent pattern of rapid position changes by Hayes. In March he predicted Hyperliquid (HYPE) could reach $150 by August and on June 1 said HYPE would outperform other top-ten cryptocurrencies in USD terms through year-end. He sold his entire HYPE holding three days later, citing higher energy prices tied to the Iran war, inventory restocking and upcoming mega AI IPOs.

Hayes also sold his Zcash (ZEC) holdings on June 5 after a critical vulnerability was found in Zcash’s privacy protocol, declaring that the trio of HYPE, ZEC and NEAR was “dead.” On-chain analytics later showed a wallet linked to Hayes repurchased about 33,978 HYPE, roughly $2 million worth, after HYPE fell following his June 4 sale.

Hayes’s posts and the Maelstrom research note occurred within days of each other and were followed by visible price swings in WLD and other small-cap tokens. The apparent sequence of recommendation, price reaction and high-profile sale was reflected in short-term trading and on-chain movements.