By
Steve Muchoki
April 19th, 2024
Arthur Hayes says Maelstrom is “patient” and is currently only seeking to invest in projects that can prove their worth.
Erstwhile BitMex CEO Arthur Hayes plans to beat returns offered by Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Together with former BitMex head of corporate development Akshat Vaidya, Arthur Hayes founded Maelstrom Capital, a fund they plan would considerably outperform the top two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap.
The Maelstrom website describes the company as Arthur Hayes’ family office. Set up using Hayes’ personal crypto funds, Maelstrom is currently targeting infrastructure companies instead of a more general investment pool. Since the company is using Hayes’ funds and currently has no liquidity providers, it can decide to be “patient” and very careful with pumping out money. According to Hayes, only projects that are worth it will benefit:
“We want to identify projects that are actually quality. It’s not a game of spray-and-pray because we don’t have outside LPs.”
Arthur Hayes Discusses the Immediate Plan for Maelstrom
Speaking on the need to focus on quality, Hayes explained that years ago, too many projects were touting themselves as the next DeFi big deal. He said because of the bear market and the waning interest in initial coin offerings (ICOs), several companies pretended to be the next best thing after DeFi giants like Compound or Uniswap. Investors also had no problem funding these projects, especially since they knew they could get tokens and abandon positions shortly after.
Hayes and Viadya are taking a different approach and are only focused on companies that can fulfill their promises. According to Hayes, doing the work required, especially in a bear market, sets quality companies apart from imitators.
However, there is no reason to think that Hayes will not invest in companies of less quality, including any meme or “sh*t coins.” The former BitMex CEO says although this could happen, now may not be the right time.
“We’re not saying that we’re always going to invest in pure quality, We’ll invest in a complete piece of [dog excrement] because we get our tokens today. And in three months’ time, we could dump them because the narrative is there.”
Hayes on Bitcoin
Arthur Hayes is bullish on Bitcoin and believes the king coin has survived the bear market. Speaking in a December interview with popular podcaster Scott Melker, Hayes said Bitcoin would begin to repair itself since irresponsible companies no longer have any.
According to him, centralized lending firms (CELs) try to solve financial trouble by getting loans. After doing this, the next step is to sell their reserve asset, usually BTC. Hayes then said anyone could prove his point by going through the balance sheets of bankrupt firms. According to him, the records will show they have no Bitcoin because most would have sold as they entered bankruptcy. Although he admits there may be no evidence to support his theory, he believes none of these companies with urgent fiat needs would hold on to their BTC.