As Hyperliquid’s HYPE saw red on Monday, Arthur Hayes revealed that his family office had liquidated its positions. Why such a decision?
Arthur Hayes’ family office sells its HYPE
This morning, the cryptocurrency market woke up in the red, with some altcoins seeing significant declines, such as Hyperliquid’s HYPE, which was down 6.7% over 24 hours at the time of writing.
In this context, Arthur Hayes, founder of the BitMEX platform and chief investment officer of his family office Maelstrom, explained that the fund had sold at least part of its holdings.
In an article published on X, the Mealstrom teams explained that their sale was motivated by significant upcoming unlockings, which could not be offset by the Hyperliquid teams’ promises to buy back HYPE tokens:
Starting November 29, 237.8 million HYPE tokens will be released linearly over 24 months. At $50 per token, this represents $11.9 billion in releases for the team, or nearly $500 million notional put on the market each month. The problem? At current levels, buybacks can only absorb about 17%. This leaves a surplus of $410 million per month. Has the market factored in the scale of these releases?
In this case, the chart below shows (in green) that the 237.7 million HYPE tokens in question will be released gradually until October 2027:
The article then goes on to discuss HYPE Treasury Companies, highlighting the idea that they will not be large enough to offset potential future sales. Finally, competition must also be taken into account, and Maelstrom cites Aster, which has been in the news in recent days thanks to the support of Changpeng Zhao (CZ).
In an article published just a month ago, Arthur Hayes defended the hypothesis of a 126-fold increase in the price of HYPE:
In the announcement of the token sale, the entrepreneur’s comments may raise a smile, as if he were trying to justify himself:
That’s why we dumped HYPE today. But don’t worry, a x126 is still possible; 2028 is still a long way off.
Whatever the HYPE levels are in three years’ time, this is yet another reminder of the famous saying that “those who give advice don’t pay the bills.” Last month, we also looked at some points of caution to consider regarding the hype surrounding Hyperliquid.
