Arthur Hayes does not exit quietly. The BitMEX co-founder has liquidated his entire positions in Hyperliquid’s HYPE token and NEAR Protocol, offloading roughly $18 million worth of crypto in a single move and then told everyone exactly why he did it.
The market heard him loud and clear. HYPE is down 5.8% and NEAR has collapsed 19.5% in the immediate aftermath, with on-chain data confirming the scale of what just hit the order books. 
This is not a routine portfolio rebalancing. Hayes is making a macro call, and he is putting his trading history behind it.
The Sell: 247,000 HYPE Tokens and an Unknown Quantity of NEAR
On-chain monitoring from Onchain Lens confirmed that Hayes sold 247,334 HYPE tokens worth approximately $18.02 million, alongside an undisclosed quantity of NEAR. The NEAR figure has not been published precisely, but the price action tells its own story, a 19.5% single-day drop in a token is not caused by ordinary selling. Something significant came off the books.
CoinGecko data tracking the fallout shows both assets moving sharply lower from the moment the news broke. HYPE, which had been one of the stronger performing assets in the derivatives infrastructure space, gave back weeks of gains in a matter of hours. NEAR, already under pressure in a weakening altcoin environment, accelerated its decline into a much deeper hole.
The timing adds an extra layer of awkwardness. Just days before executing these sales, Hayes had publicly challenged Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital to a $100,000 charitable bet, his argument being that HYPE would outperform every other top-ten market cap cryptocurrency by the end of the year. Samani accepted and backed Solana. Hayes then sold his HYPE position. Whether the bet still stands is unclear, but the optics of challenging someone on an asset you are simultaneously offloading are difficult to ignore.
Hayes Promises a Full Explanation in “Reality Test” Next Tuesday
In a post on X, Hayes confirmed the liquidations and told his followers that a full breakdown of his reasoning will appear in an article titled “Reality Test,” set to drop next Tuesday. He framed the current moment as a time to take profits and step back from risk, not a permanent exit from crypto, but a deliberate reduction in exposure ahead of what he sees as a turbulent period.
The headline reasoning he shared in advance centres on three interlocking themes: rising energy prices driven by the Iran war and inventory restocking cycles, a cluster of major AI company IPOs expected between now and the start of the third quarter, and his prediction that Donald Trump will pivot to an anti-AI policy stance in order to help Republicans perform in the midterm elections.
These are not standard crypto-native concerns. Hayes is thinking about this through a macro lens that most retail participants in the HYPE and NEAR ecosystems are not running. He is connecting geopolitical conflict, equity market supply, and US political positioning into a single thesis that lands on one conclusion: the market peak appears somewhere around September, and the window to sell into strength is closing.
Why the Iran War and AI IPOs Are Driving His Exit
The energy price argument is the most traditional of Hayes’s three pillars. War in the Middle East consistently creates volatility in oil and gas markets. When that volatility lands on top of existing inventory restocking cycles, where industrial buyers are already rebuilding depleted reserves, the result tends to be sustained upward pressure on energy costs. Rising energy prices feed inflation, complicate central bank policy, and historically create headwinds for risk assets including crypto.
The AI IPO angle is more interesting and arguably more specific to this moment. Hayes appears to believe that a wave of major AI company listings hitting public markets between now and Q3 will pull significant capital out of crypto and into traditional equity markets. When large, well-known companies go public, institutional money rotates. Funds that might otherwise sit in digital assets get redeployed into IPO allocations. The effect on crypto liquidity is real, even if it is indirect.
The Trump anti-AI pivot thesis is the most speculative of the three, but it is also the most politically specific. Hayes is arguing that the current administration will find it advantageous to take a harder stance on artificial intelligence, particularly as a talking point that plays well in certain Republican constituencies heading into the midterms. If that shift happens and it dampens the AI-driven market enthusiasm that has been running since late last year, the broader risk rally that has carried crypto higher loses one of its most important narratives.
What the $100,000 Bet With Kyle Samani Now Means
The charitable wager with Samani deserves its own examination because it cuts to the heart of how Hayes communicates about markets. He made a loud, public, financially committed claim that HYPE would be the best performing top-ten asset of the year. That claim attracted attention, drew a counter-bet from one of the most respected fund managers in crypto, and was reported widely.
Then he sold his position.
There are a few ways to read this. One is that Hayes genuinely believes HYPE outperforms by year-end even from current levels, and he simply decided to take profits now with the intention of buying back lower after the September peak he is calling. Another is that the bet and the sale are compartmentalised, the wager is about a price outcome, not about whether he personally holds the token. A third reading, which his critics are already voicing, is that the sequence of events looks like a man talking up an asset publicly while privately preparing to sell it.
Hayes has not directly addressed the apparent contradiction. The “Reality Test” article next Tuesday will presumably provide more context, and the crypto community is already waiting for it with considerably more interest than it might have generated otherwise.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
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The post Arthur Hayes Dumps $18 Million in HYPE and NEAR appeared first on The Merkle News.
