These days, opinions on crypto investments change in less than 24 hours.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of crypto exchange BitMEX and chief investment officer of family office Maelstrom, said Friday the company sold its entire stake in Worldcoin, the digital token tied to Sam Altman’s eye-scanning identity project, a day after saying it would continue to hold the token.
“I dumped $WLD. I’m out. See you at the clerk,” he wrote, alongside a chart of SpaceX’s stock decline. WLD fell 10% in the last 24 hours, with part of that drop coming after Hayes’ tweet.
A day earlier, Hayes said Maelstrom was guarding Worldcoin. The company had just sold all of its Zcash, a privacy coin, blaming a flaw in its Orchard privacy pool that he said undermined the reason to own it, and Hayes said the company would buy it back higher if he was wrong. Worldcoin he would keep, he said then, while waiting for “Lord Elon” – referring to Elon Musk – to increase the price.
The connection was through artificial intelligence. SpaceX is increasingly pitching its listing as a player in AI and connectivity rather than just a rocket company, so its strong debut promised to boost the broader business of AI and technology.
Worldcoin, an AI-themed token that trades 24 hours a day, was the fund’s quick way to get there, a liquid substitute for SpaceX shares that retail can’t easily buy and aren’t yet traded.
SpaceX trades under the symbol SPCX but did not list on Nasdaq until June 12. The price Hayes responded to is therefore a pre-listing quote on the private markets for a company that is not yet public. Worldcoin is also Altman’s project, not Musk’s, and the two men run rival artificial intelligence companies.
Pre-listings for SpaceX shares have fallen more than 50% in recent days on Hyperliquide, data shows, giving AI bettors less reason to hold the proxy.
Hayes is a frequent voice moving the crypto market. Worldcoin has weathered the market downturn with a 70% rise over the past month, a gain that was reduced to 45% over the past week following Saturday’s price drop.
