Arthur Hayes dumps Maelstrom's whole trading book, about $22 million to $26 million of ETH, ENA, UNI and more, ahead of next week's Fed meeting

Arthur Hayes, the BitMEX co-founder whose family office Maelstrom is one of the most watched traders in crypto, said on Saturday that he had sold its whole directional trading book. In a post on X he wrote, "I dumped it all", and said he had taken profits on ETH, ENA, UNI and other tokens because macro and geopolitical conditions looked dicey, CoinGape reported. He said he would wait on the sidelines for an all-clear signal.

The sales were tracked on-chain, with the totals differing by who counted. CoinGape, citing Lookonchain, put them at about $22.28 million: 6,400 ETH worth about $15.2 million, 14 million ENA worth about $2.76 million and 323,000 UNI worth about $2.24 million, plus smaller positions. CryptoSlate, citing EmberCN, counted about $26 million across seven tokens, with 8,000 ETH at about $19 million making up nearly three quarters, followed by ENA, UNI, ETHFI, AERO, PENDLE and ZAMA.

The move is a sharp turn from Hayes's September 2 outlook, which had floated a $10,000 year-end target for ether, CryptoSlate noted. It said the announcement does not show that Maelstrom sold its longer-term bitcoin exposure or other investments.

The timing matters: bitcoin fell below $80,000 on Saturday, and the Federal Reserve meets on October 27 and 28, the next big event for anyone deciding whether to follow Hayes to the sidelines.