Most Influential: Arthur Hayes

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has re-emerged successful caller years arsenic 1 of the industry’s astir consistently influential macro thinkers.

Dec 11, 2025, 3:00 p.m.

Arthur Hayes has ne'er been 1 to slice softly into the background. After co-founding BitMEX and helping pioneer the modern crypto derivatives market, helium has re-emerged successful caller years arsenic 1 of the industry’s astir consistently influential macro thinkers. Now CIO of Maelstrom, Hayes has turned his attraction from exchange-building to thesis-driven investing — with a sprinkle of societal media trolling connected top.

Few executives successful crypto support a societal beingness arsenic lively, chaotic and strangely insightful arsenic Hayes’. His X provender swings betwixt elaborate macro commentary, crisp marketplace calls, literate references and the occasional troll-like jab.

But beneath the theatrics lies a way grounds that traders progressively wage attraction to. Hayes was aboriginal to the emergence of respective AI-adjacent tokens — a assemblage that dominated speculative flows passim 2024 and 2025 — and helium openly championed Zcash ZEC$418.31, which went connected to rally much than 450% implicit the past year.

At Maelstrom, he’s leaned adjacent further into his relation arsenic provocateur-cum-strategist. Hayes blends semipermanent geopolitical investigation with short-term marketplace instincts, often arguing that crypto’s adjacent signifier volition beryllium shaped by AI infrastructure, privacy-preserving technologies and the monetary experiments of nation-states. His essays, peppered with irreverence and acheronian humour, reenforce a persona that’s adjacent parts professor, trader and chaos agent.

In an manufacture that cycles done personalities astatine dizzying speed, Hayes remains unusually durable. He whitethorn nary longer tally a large exchange, but done Maelstrom — and his ever-spicy societal commentary — helium continues to beryllium 1 of the astir applicable voices successful the industry.

Most Influential: The Social Media Traders

Crypto Twitter’s societal media traders turned their X dashboards into nationalist PnL world shows successful 2025, sending billions successful measurement done memecoins and perp DEXs successful existent time.