Hayes dumps WLD days after Maelstrom's bullish call

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Hayes dumps WLD

Highlights

Hayes sold WLD days after Maelstrom pitched it as an AI IPO proxy.
WLD briefly topped $0.60 before falling back to about $0.40.
The sale drew attention because Hayes had earlier signaled he would hold through the expected SpaceX listing.

Hayes said over the weekend that he had exited WLD after pointing to weakness in a SpaceX pre-IPO perpetual futures contract, Cointelegraph reports. His timing drew attention because Maelstrom researcher Lukas Ruppert had argued just days earlier that Worldcoin was an overlooked proxy for upcoming AI-related public listings and projected that WLD could reach $5 by August.

WLD rally fades after the sale

The Maelstrom note briefly lifted sentiment around WLD. The token rose above $0.60 on Friday before retreating to about $0.40 by Sunday after Hayes told his followers on X that he had sold.

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The reversal was especially notable because Hayes had previously indicated that he planned to hold WLD through the expected SpaceX listing on Nasdaq. That earlier position helped frame WLD as part of a broader trade tied to AI, private-market valuations, and the idea that crypto tokens can act as indirect exposure to major technology listings.

Worldcoin has long been volatile, partly because it sits at the intersection of digital identity, AI, and crypto speculation. The latest move adds another layer: investors now have to separate Maelstrom’s published investment thesis from Hayes’s personal trading decisions.

A pattern of sharp pivots

WLD is not the first token where Hayes has shifted quickly after making bullish comments. In March, he projected that Hyperliquid’s HYPE token could reach $150 by August. On June 1, he said HYPE could outperform other major crypto assets through year-end but sold his position three days later.

Hayes also changed course on Zcash. In May, he suggested ZEC could climb to 10% of Bitcoin’s price but sold his holdings in early June after a critical vulnerability was found in its privacy protocol. Around the same period, he said his favored group of HYPE, ZEC, and NEAR was no longer intact.

The story became more complicated after a wallet linked to Hayes bought back about 33,978 HYPE, worth roughly $2 million, following a 26% decline after his earlier sale.

Market signal beyond one token

WLD moved from a Maelstrom-backed AI IPO thesis to a public exit by Hayes within days.

For traders, that gap between narrative and positioning is now part of the risk.

In addition, we wrote that Arthur Hayes sets a timeline for Bitcoin to reach $100,000.

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