- Crypto investor Arthur Hayes sold his entire Worldcoin (WLD) position just days after publicly backing the token as a promising AI-related investment.
- Worldcoin’s price fell more than 25% after Hayes disclosed his exit, erasing a significant portion of the gains fueled by recent bullish predictions.
- Maelstrom researcher Lukas Ruppert had previously projected WLD could reach $5 by August, helping drive investor interest in the AI-focused cryptocurrency.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder at BitMEX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, has sold his Worldcoin stake a few days after openly endorsing the token as an AI-related investment. This move has garnered criticism from market players and corresponded with a significant drop in the price of Worldcoin (WLD).
This chart is going in the wrong direction. Dumped $WLD. I’m out. See y’all at the clerb. pic.twitter.com/TcfYzCmtSv
— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) June 6, 2026
Hayes claimed that the SpaceX pre-IPO perpetual futures contract chart was “going in the wrong direction” and declared that he had sold his WLD position.
WLD Drops 25% As Arthur Hayes Abandons Bullish Worldcoin Bet
Less than a week has passed since Lukas Ruppert, a researcher at Maelstrom, referred to Worldcoin as an “overlooked” method of gaining exposure to impending AI mega IPOs. Ruppert forecast that WLD might hit $5 by August in an investor paper dated June 4. This prediction fueled a surge that momentarily elevated the token above $0.60.
But on June 7, WLD had dropped back to about $0.40. After Hayes announced the exit, the coin fell more than 25%, wiping out much of its recent gains.
On-chain investigator ZachXBT questioned how much “exit liquidity” would have been generated from Hayes’ supporters when he openly backed NEAR, HYPE, ZEC, and WLD before subsequently selling those holdings in a June 6 post on X.
How much exit liquidity was created from your followers over the past couple days?
First NEAR HYPE ZEC
Now WLD pic.twitter.com/vyDXwCHRwO— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) June 6, 2026
ZachXBT Challenges Arthur Hayes Over Worldcoin (WLD) Exit Timing
ZachXBT also cited Hayes’s repeated optimistic remarks about Worldcoin, pointing out that the investor had talked about much higher price objectives before quickly pulling out of the trade.
Hayes responded on X by dismissing the criticism. He claimed that he had sold to a willing buyer at a mutually agreed-upon price and contended that following his transaction, prices might have increased. Hayes went on to say that the timing just matched his trading goals.
Because Hayes had previously informed supporters that he planned to hold WLD through the anticipated June 12 SpaceX IPO on Nasdaq, public scrutiny increased.
Some traders who had considered the token to be one of his strongest AI-related investments were taken aback by his decision to withdraw ahead of schedule.
Arthur Hayes Dumps HYPE, NEAR & ZEC Amid Shifting Market Risks
On June 4, he said that he had sold his entire HYPE and NEAR positions, despite previously calling HYPE one of his most liquid cryptocurrency investments and estimating a $150 price objective by August.
Hayes ascribed the decision to variables like increasing energy prices due to the Iran conflict, inventory restocking, planned AI IPOs, and political uncertainty surrounding artificial intelligence policies in the United States.
Hayes left Zcash a day later after information of a vulnerability impacting the Orchard protected pool surfaced. He explained the ruling on X by saying that privacy-focused assets needed a very high level of confidence and that his previous investment thesis was no longer valid in those circumstances.
The “Holy Trinity” of HYPE, ZEC and NEAR was proclaimed dead by Hayes at the time. However, the tale took a different turn this week when data from Arkham Intelligence revealed that a wallet associated with Hayes bought about 33,978 HYPE tokens, valued at roughly $2 million, after the asset had dropped after his prior sale.
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