Prominent on-chain researcher ZachXBT has publicly accused BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes of orchestrating classic "pump and dump" market manipulation schemes across several high-profile digital assets. The latest industry controversy erupted immediately after the influential crypto entrepreneur published a post revealing he had completely liquidated his holdings in the WLD token, blaming the asset's poor price performance. According to the independent blockchain sleuth, Hayes deliberately utilized his massive following on the X social media platform to manufacture "exit liquidity," actively promoting these projects just before offloading his own substantial positions.

The investigator highlighted a highly suspicious timeline, noting that Hayes had been aggressively praising the upside of Worldcoin less than twenty-four hours before disclosing his sudden exit. At that time, the businessman announced he was dumping Zcash tokens following a critical vulnerability in the Orchard Pool protocol, while reassuring his audience that WLD would break records by capitalizing on the macro hype surrounding upcoming artificial intelligence IPOs and the anticipated Nasdaq listing of SpaceX. Responding to the manipulation allegations, Arthur Hayes countered that his transactions did not impact the public order books because the WLD transfer was executed entirely off-market to a specific interested buyer at a predetermined price. The entrepreneur maintained that his actions represented standard profit-taking aligned with his personal financial targets, arguing that successfully timing the local market top was merely a sign of good trading rather than a calculated exploit.

Nevertheless, retail investors are pointing to a worrying pattern of behavior, as Sam Altman's Worldcoin project surged over 73% in a month—heavily fueled by Hayes’s speculative commentary linking it to the SpaceX public float—before its price experienced a brutal collapse on Saturday, June 6, to just 0.45 dollars. Furthermore, disgruntled subscribers recalled that they had previously suffered from identical tactics involving the entrepreneur's holdings in HYPE and NEAR. Prior to completely washing his hands of those specific assets on June 4–5, Hayes had made a highly publicized large bet on Hyperliquid’s ecosystem expansion while consistently generating bullish social media commentary. In that instance, Hayes defended his synchronized top-tick liquidations by pointing to macroeconomic shifts, including rising oil prices driven by the military conflict with Iran and expectations surrounding three upcoming artificial intelligence mega-IPOs.