Arthur Hayes Sells WLD Holdings After ‘Holy Trinity Death’, Sparks Exit Liquidity Controversy

Arthur Hayes has disclosed the unwinding of his Worldcoin position just days after revealing a major rebalancing of Maelstrom’s portfolio. On Friday, June 5th, the BitMEX co-founder proclaimed that “the Holy Trinity is dead,” dumping his Zcash, Hyperliquid, and NEAR holdings while touting WLD’s prospects of outperforming.

Hayes revealed the recently found Orchard Pool vulnerability as the rationale behind taking profit on Zcash. Meanwhile, the Maelstrom CIO had earlier sold off his entire HYPE and NEAR holdings, citing higher energy prices (due to the war in Iran), imminent US IPOs, and a rising anti-AI political stance.

Was It All Hype?

As Hayes dumped his Zcash positions, he announced his continued exposure to Worldcoin, citing his expectation that SpaceX’s IPO would catalyze WLD’s move higher. The crypto founder went on to say, “never bet against Elon,” as the price of Worldcoin remained fairly steady during Friday’s market storm.

However, in the early hours of Saturday, Hayes posted a chart of the SpaceX security and said the price is “going in the wrong direction” before disclosing that he is out of his Worldcoin position. The Maelstrom CIO barely explained the rationale for his decision to dump the WLD tokens this weekend, despite initially implying he would hold the altcoin through the SpaceX IPO next week.

This market movement sparked outrage within the crypto community on the social media platform X, with prominent blockchain sleuth ZachXBT among the commentators. “How much exit liquidity was created from your followers over the past couple of days?” the crypto space investigator questioned Hayes on X.

Exit liquidity refers to a concept where early buyers or investors are able to successfully sell off their holdings when new buyers enter the market. Although not entirely limited to scams, this concept is often linked to “pump and dump” or “market manipulation” schemes, in which holders with significant followings and influence hype an asset before exiting at a high price.

The BitMEX founder rebuffed the idea that he used his followers as exit liquidity, saying that he sold to a willing buyer at a price. “Prices could be higher, and then I would be called a dumb ass. I just happened to call it right this time as it regards to my trading goals,” Hayes wrote on X.

WLD Price At A Glance

Shortly after Hayes disclosed that he was offloading his WLD holdings, the altcoin’s value dropped by almost 30% before recovering. As of this writing, the price of Worldcoin stands at around $0.4228, with an over 20% decline still on the books over the past day.

Featured image from Suhaimi Abdullah/Bloomberg, chart from TradingView