Key Insights
- During the recent crypto market sell-off, Arthur Hayes sold $13.35 million worth of Ethereum, PEPE, and ENA.
- His Ethereum sales alone totaled 2,373 ETH worth over $8.3 million.
- While Hayes has been one of the most vocal crypto bulls, this move is a tactical retreat amid market volatility.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, has joined the list of investors backing out of the market. On Friday, Hayes offloaded over $13.35 million of digital assets amid the general market slump.
This includes Ethereum, PEPE, and ENA. That happened because Bitcoin and Ethereum suffered declines. Within 24 hours, BTC fell by 1.5% and ETH dropped over 4.6%.
Volatility is now rising, and market watchers are questioning whether Hayes’ sell-off is the first of more to come.
Arthur Hayes Dumps Ethereum and Altcoins
The selling spree began on August 1. At that time, a wallet address named Arthur Hayes by Arkham Intelligence (“0x6cd6”) started moving large amounts of crypto.
First, Hayes transferred his entire ENA stash (about 7.76 million tokens worth $4.62 million) to Binance. This was followed by a 38.86 billion PEPE token transfer worth $415,470 to Cumberland DRW, another trading firm.
However, the biggest of these moves came with Ethereum. Hayes converted 2,095 wrapped ETH (WETH) into regular Ethereum through Uniswap. He then transferred 2,373 ETH (worth $8.32 million) to B2C2 and Binance.
Arthur Hayes still holds a large amount of ETH, worth approximately 233,444 ETH or just over $824,000. However, the scale of his recent sell-off indicates that he has just pivoted in strategy.
Ethereum Sell-Off Extends Beyond Hayes
Hayes isn’t the only crypto OG making moves. Lookonchain said another wallet (“0x3c9E”) sent a staggering 26,182 ETH worth $93.6 million to top exchanges. The names include Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Kraken over the past 48 hours.
In addition, Coinbase and Binance have been transferring Ethereum to the market maker, Wintermute. These transfers indicate that even the institutions benefit from over-the-counter (OTC) services to offload ETH without triggering massive price drops.
Meanwhile, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their second-largest one-day outflow, worth $812 million. Fidelity’s FBTC led the losses and shed $331 million. Spot Ethereum ETFs also saw massive outflows, which indicates investor caution across the board.
Not Everyone is Selling Though
Despite the wave of selling pressure, some investors are taking advantage of the price dip. Wallet “0xdf0A” reportedly received 16,496 ETH ($58.5 million) from Galaxy Digital’s OTC desk. Since July 9, twelve new wallets have bought over 808,000 ETH worth approximately $2.85 billion.
SharpLink Gaming added 14,933 ETH ($52.5 million) to its reserves, just hours after the sell-off by Arthur Hayes. This brings the company’s total Ethereum holdings to 464,209 ETH (now over $1.6 billion).
Tactical Move or Bearish Turn?
Hayes’ decision to sell comes just weeks after predicting a so-called “monster altseason”. Hayes predicted that Ethereum could reach $10,000 based on institutional demand and more treasury strategies.
So why the sudden change? Arthur Hayes noted that the US tariff bill was coming in the third quarter of the year. He did it in response to a report of his sell-off from LookOnChain.
He also mentioned that the US was not creating enough credit to boost nominal GDP: Not fast enough, anyway. As a result, Hayes sees Bitcoin testing $100,000 and Ethereum hitting $3,000.
So far, his actions show a short-term tactical move rather than a long-term change in belief. For instance, Hayes previously bought $1.5 million worth of ENA when prices were low. This shows that he is willing to buy into new projects with potential.
This sell-off might be a way for Hayes to reduce his exposure to the market’s volatility over the short term and enter later. Considering his history of contrarian moves, some analysts believe this could be part of a plan to profit from the market’s ups and downs.
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