Arthur Hayes, the outspoken BitMEX co-founder and Maelstrom CIO, sparked a sharp sell-off in Worldcoin (WLD) after saying his firm dumped its entire position — a reversal that hit the token within hours.
“Dumped $WLD. I’m out. See y’all at the clerb,” Hayes tweeted Friday alongside a chart of SpaceX shares sliding. The post coincided with a steep WLD slide — the token fell as much as 20% intraday and was down around 10% over the prior 24 hours, with a notable portion of that move coming after Hayes’ message.
The sell came just a day after Hayes had publicly said Maelstrom would keep its Worldcoin holding. The firm had earlier liquidated its Zcash position, blaming a flaw in Zcash’s Orchard privacy pool for eroding the asset’s value proposition; Hayes added the fund might buy back Zcash at higher levels if proven wrong. At the time he pledged to hold WLD while “waiting for ‘Lord Elon’” to lift the price.
That comment exposed the chain of logic: SpaceX’s much-hyped public debut has been pitched by some as an AI-and-connectivity story, and private-market quotes for SpaceX (ticker SPCX) have been treated by some traders as an AI proxy that could lift broader tech and AI plays. Worldcoin — a 24/7-trading, AI-themed token tied to Sam Altman’s iris-scanning identity project — had been used by retail and funds as a liquid stand-in for hard-to-access pre-listing SpaceX exposure. But SpaceX pre-listings on private markets like Hyperliquid have slumped by more than 50% in recent days, weakening that thesis.
It’s worth noting Worldcoin is Sam Altman’s project; Musk and Altman now run rival AI firms. Hayes, a high-profile and frequently market-moving voice in crypto, may have amplified the sell pressure with his abrupt reversal.
Until the drop, Worldcoin had been bucking a wider market downturn: the token rose roughly 70% over the past month, a gain trimmed to about 45% over the prior week after Saturday’s sell-off. The episode underscores how quickly positions — and market sentiment — can shift in crypto, especially when amplified by prominent traders and private-market turbulence.
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