Hayes Wants Your Money (For Crypto Stuff)

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So, Arthur Hayes – you remember him, the BitMEX guy? Seems he’s decided trading crypto isn’t sustainable enough. Now he wants a quarter of a billion dollars from other people. 🙄 Maelstrom, his family office (which sounds suspiciously like a Bond villain organization) is trying to raise $250 million for a private equity fund. A fund. For crypto. Infrastructure. It’s like building a really complicated house of cards on top of a slightly less complicated house of cards. 🤷

According to Bloomberg (which, let’s be honest, probably needed a story after running out of things to say about airline food), they’ll be buying up “medium-sized” crypto firms. Apparently, the small ones are too chaotic, and the big ones are…well, probably already bought up by someone else with too much money. Akshat Vaidya, Maelstrom’s co-founder, says they’ll be throwing around $40-$75 million a year on companies that do “essential services.” Like what, making sure all the servers are plugged in? 🤔

The timing is excellent, naturally. Right after the entire industry nearly imploded thanks to, you know…that one exchange. But hey, a little chaos never hurt anyone trying to make a profit, right? We’ve already seen Stripe fling $1.1 billion at Bridge, Ripple drop $1.25 billion on Hidden Road, and Coinbase cough up almost three billion for Deribit. It’s a veritable spending spree. A fire sale, if you will. 🔥

Strategic Shift from Tokens to Equity

Turns out, just buying up magic internet money wasn’t panning out. Go figure. So now they want to own the companies selling the magic internet money. Apparently, actual revenue is preferable to hoping a token magically appreciates in value. It’s a novel concept, really. Vaidya is looking for companies that actually, you know, make money. And aren’t just sitting on piles of unused tokens. The bar is remarkably low. 📉

They’re fancy enough to use “special purpose vehicles” (sounds so…purposeful) and plan to be the “anchor investor.” Which I assume means they’re the ones holding the ship steady while everyone else bails. They have this charming Bitcoin grant program too, which is probably just for good PR. Like they’re saying, “See? We’re not entirely self-serving!”

BTC
$106,484

24h volatility:
1.5%

Market cap:
$2.12 T

Vol. 24h:
$97.61 B

Timeline and Fundraising Targets

They want their first batch of cash by March 31, 2026. 🗓️ Because apparently, finding investors willing to throw money into this scheme takes time. The whole thing will be “fully funded” by September 2026, which, frankly, feels optimistic. Hayes and Vaidya are leading the charge, supported by a newly hired Adam Schlegel. More people to take the blame when it all goes south, presumably. Hayes started this whole operation in 2023, presumably when he realized he hadn’t diversified his collection of questionable assets enough.

They also claim they’re taking a “patient capital approach,” which I read as “we’re willing to wait for our investment to yield *some* kind of return, even if it takes a while.” Hayes is still dabbling in altcoins, because, honestly, what else is he going to do? Let all that crypto sit there looking pretty? 🤷‍♀️

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2025-10-18 03:28