Arthur Hayes pumped $ZEC, $NEAR, and $WLD — then sold the…

Arthur Hayes, the BitMEX co-founder and one of crypto's most-followed macro traders, publicly called Zcash (ZEC), NEAR Protocol (NEAR), and Worldcoin (WLD) — then sold near the peak before disclosing his exit and flipping bearish on all three.

Why it matters

The sequence — call, pump, exit, disclose — is a pattern that raises serious questions about market influence and disclosure timing. Hayes commands a large, highly engaged following that moves capital on his commentary. When the exit disclosure comes after the sale, followers who bought on the initial call are left holding the bag. All three tokens have now retraced fully to pre-call levels, wiping out any gains for late entrants.

Market impact

ZEC, NEAR, and WLD are each back to square one, meaning the only durable beneficiary of the trade cycle was Hayes himself. For traders still holding, the technical picture is now structurally weak — a full round-trip with no higher low established is a bearish signal in its own right. The episode also lands at a sensitive moment for crypto's relationship with regulators, who have increasingly scrutinized influencer-driven pump-and-disclose patterns as potential market manipulation. Traders should treat any future Hayes calls with the full context of this episode in mind.