Arthur Hayes exits HYPE and NEAR as on-chain data shows $18.02 million HYPE sale

Arthur Hayes said he sold all of his HYPE and NEAR positions, arguing that higher energy prices linked to the war in the Middle East and inventory restocking, a wave of AI initial public offerings that could divert capital from crypto, and his view that markets may peak between now and September made it time to take profit. He also said President Donald Trump could adopt an anti-AI stance ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. midterm elections, a potential risk for NEAR because the project has positioned itself as an AI-native blockchain. Hayes wrote that he would explain the trades in more detail in an essay due on June 9. The move came only days after Hayes reiterated a bullish view on both tokens. In a May 25 interview with The Rollup podcast, he said HYPE could go “much, much higher,” praised Hyperliquid’s tokenomics and revenue model, and said NEAR could rise 20-fold, while also calling HYPE, NEAR and ZEC the “holy trinity” in a May 22 X post. The reversal drew criticism from some X users, who accused him of a pump-and-dump-style strategy. Separately, Onchain Lens previously reported that Hayes sold 247,334 HYPE worth $18.02 million and an unspecified amount of NEAR shortly after he publicly made a $100,000 charity bet with Kyle Samani that HYPE would outperform the other top-10 cryptocurrencies by year-end, while Samani backed SOL. According to The Block's price page, HYPE fell 8.3% over the past 24 hours to $66.44, while NEAR dropped 17.8% to $2.34.