BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes resurfaces to opine on Robinhood's meme stock drama
BitMEX co-cofounder Arthur Hayes went off the grid last year after the U.S. government filed criminals charges against him, the crypto derivatives exchange and his co-founders.
BitMEX ultimately moved to replace its leadership team in the days following the twin U.S. lawsuits, meaning that Hayes was no longer CEO of the platform. Earlier this month, Vanity Fair published a long feature on Hayes and BitMEX, suggesting that he may be in Singapore, where he owns a home.
After months of public silence, Hayes is back -- in written form, at least. In a blog post entitled "Walkaway," Hayes expounded on the recent drama around Robinhood, GameStop and the ensuing chaos that swept Wall Street, struck down short-sellers of the gaming retailer's stock and drew the attention of journalists, regulators and members of Congress. His blog post contained no information about his whereabouts, nor did it make reference to the charges levied against him or BitMEX.
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"Stonks for the long run. My hiatus from the equity markets ended when I too became sucked into the meme stock vortex," Hayes wrote. "Seeing a meme stock like GME log a ten bagger in a few trading sessions will get any hardened market operator on their feet. I could not resist the YOLO urge."
After what amounts to a denouncement of the current environment for trading -- "[r]etail traders in aggregate supply the cannon fodder for Hamptons pads, Monaco F1 jaunts, and 100,000 GBP bar tabs at The Box," he wrote -- Hayes wrote optimistically about what he called the Crypto Capital Market: "Erected upon the bedrock of open source, this new Crypto Capital Markets game promises an open, permission-less way to move data / value around society. The playing field is cyberspace, and anyone with an internet-enabled device can play."
He also promised future blog posts on the subject. "As the traditional financial game is adjudicated and participants feel raw with the surfeit of perceived inequalities, I will in plain language demonstrate why that behaviour can’t or wouldn’t persist in the Crypto Capital Markets."
