Arthur Hayes Sells HYPE, NEAR and ZEC, Keeps Worldcoin

Arthur Hayes, co‑founder of BitMEX, liquidated positions in HYPE and NEAR on June 4 and exited ZEC on June 5 but kept Worldcoin (WLD). He posted that he will explain his view in an essay titled “Reality Test” and tweeted, “The SpaceX IPO is going to melt people’s faces off. Holding the $WLD through the listing next week.” He also posted that he sold ZEC after a critical bug in Zcash’s Orchard shielded pool, writing, “The Holy Trinity is dead… I had to dump our entire $ZEC bag.”

Hayes listed higher energy prices linked to the Iran conflict, a wave of large AI IPOs, and an expected market top between now and September as factors behind the HYPE and NEAR sales. He framed the ZEC sale as conditional and left open the possibility of repurchasing if his assumptions change.

On NEAR, perpetual futures whales were heavily net short, exchange inflows increased and the token’s smart‑money index fell while price dropped from above $3.08. On HYPE, large Hyperliquid addresses were net short by about $53 million, exchange inflows ran roughly 2.5 times the average and the smart‑money index moved lower from around the $75 level.

After the Orchard bug surfaced, ZEC’s smart‑money count fell about 4% in 24 hours while the whale cohort rose roughly 11% and the top‑100 addresses increased holdings by about 24%, reflecting larger holders adding during the sell‑off.

Worldcoin showed different patterns. On Hyperliquid, public figures, smart traders and whales remained net long on WLD. Whale‑held supply off exchanges inched from about 9.61 billion tokens to about 9.63 billion. On‑chain flows were mixed: some smart‑money wallets realized gains, exchange outflows exceeded averages and new‑wallet inflows spiked well above normal levels. Worldcoin’s price rose about 80% in one week while the broader crypto market weakened.

Hayes described Worldcoin as a high‑beta proxy for the AI IPO wave tied to the SpaceX listing and said he will hold WLD through that event. He identified a decline in WLD’s smart‑money index as the metric that would prompt a sale, and noted a sustained drop similar to the declines seen on NEAR and HYPE as the trigger for reconsidering the position.