Arthur Hayes says he has closed Maelstrom's entire directional trading book, stepping aside as he warns that crypto may have to fall further before it can recover. Blockchain tracker Lookonchain put the reported sales at about $22.28 million across seven tokens.

The BitMEX co-founder described the trades as taking profits. The dollar estimate values the reported positions; his actual profit depends on what he paid for them. The wallet attributions behind the tracker's estimate have not been independently verified by Apex.

What Hayes sold

Hayes announced the exit in an October 24 post, naming Ether, Ethena and Uniswap among the positions he had closed. His explanation was blunt:

"I think we gotta go down to go up."

A directional trading book holds positions intended to benefit from a move in market prices. Long positions benefit from rising prices, while short positions are designed to gain from a decline. Closing the book removes those bets.

Ether accounted for the biggest part of the reported sale. The tracker listed 6,400 ETH valued at $15.2 million, more than two-thirds of its total estimate. That made Ethereum the main position behind the headline number, even though six other tokens were involved.

Next came 14 million Ethena tokens valued at $2.76 million and 323,000 Uniswap tokens worth $2.24 million. Those three positions together accounted for about $20.2 million of the reported transactions.

The smaller positions included 1.89 million ether.fi tokens valued at $1.23 million and 546,609 Aerodrome Finance tokens worth $398,000. The list also contained 120,000 Pendle tokens valued at $244,000 and 3 million Zama tokens worth $214,000. Together, the four smaller positions came to roughly $2.1 million at the values used in the tracker's report.

Why he is stepping back

Hayes pointed to the broader economic and political picture as the reason for his caution:

"It looks a bit dicey out there in macro and geopolitical land."

He said he would sit on the sidelines and wait for an all-clear signal. He didn't specify a price at which he would buy again, put a date on a recovery or say how far he expected the market to fall first.

His October 15 post had taken a different immediate stance. Hayes said he wouldn't bet either way on an AI selloff and instead wanted to trade the multitrillion-dollar bailout he expected, backing long Bitcoin and Ether positions. He ended his latest message with the money-printing reference "Brrrrr."

The exit follows a difficult stretch for the wider market. In an October 24 analysis, Apex reported that total cryptocurrency market value had fallen by roughly $237.4 billion from CoinMarketCap's October 2 observation to its early October 24 snapshot.

That earlier reading put the market at about $2.704 trillion, against $2.942 trillion at the comparison point. Bitcoin was trading near $80,000, after buyers failed to hold an earlier move above $84,000 during the week.

The trading book sits inside a broader investment business

Maelstrom's team page identifies Hayes as its chief investment officer and co-founder. He previously co-founded BitMEX in 2014 and worked as an equity derivatives trader at Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.

The firm's own description gives some context to what he closed. Managed by Hayes's family office, Maelstrom invests across venture capital, liquid assets, private equity and public markets, with a focus on infrastructure businesses and assets.

Its investments include early-stage company equity and tokens as well as private and publicly traded positions. Hayes's announcement concerned the directional trading book within that wider business. Maelstrom separately identifies Nick Andrianov as the partner responsible for its liquid arm, which hedges and trades the firm's liquid positions. He previously served as head trader at BitMEX.