Arthur Hayes

Arthur Hayes is an American crypto entrepreneur and investor best known as the co-founder and former CEO of BitMEX, the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange founded in 2014 with Ben Delo and Samuel Reed. Maelstrom’s team page says Hayes began his career as an equity derivatives trader at Deutsche Bank and Citigroup and holds a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

At BitMEX, Hayes helped build one of the earliest major crypto-derivatives businesses. Maelstrom credits him with inventing the perpetual swap, now a core product in crypto derivatives markets. Vanity Fair reported that BitMEX grew into a major exchange handling trillions in transaction volume, while CoinDesk reported that Hayes later founded Maelstrom with Akshat Vaidya, BitMEX’s former head of corporate development.

Hayes is now CIO and Co-Founder of Maelstrom, which is managed by his family office. Maelstrom describes itself as building a long-term portfolio across venture, liquid, private equity, and public markets, focused on infrastructure companies and assets that form the foundation for trustless decentralization.

Hayes’ post-BitMEX history also includes a U.S. Bank Secrecy Act case: in 2022 he pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an adequate AML program at BitMEX and was sentenced to probation, home confinement, and a $10 million fine. In March 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned Hayes and other BitMEX-associated individuals.

• Maelstrom’s stated thesis: “Maelstrom invests in entropy // trustless decentralization // new models to monetize the internet.”
• The firm says it thinks on a “10/20/50-year horizon,” focusing on infrastructure startups that power the next wave of decentralization.
• Maelstrom backs early-stage equity and token investments, but also invests across liquid assets, private equity, and public markets.
• Hayes and Maelstrom look for crypto infrastructure with durable technical moats, large markets, and straightforward business logic; CoinDesk quoted Maelstrom’s Akshat Vaidya describing infrastructure deals as having “strong technological moats” and addressing large markets.
• Hayes has said Maelstrom is patient because it is his family office capital, not a fund under pressure from outside LPs; he told CoinDesk, “It’s not a game of spray-and-pray because we don’t have outside LPs.”
• In a 2025 Financial News interview, Hayes said his private-equity focus had moved toward already-profitable crypto/data companies attractive to larger acquirers, including companies with customer relationships outside exchanges.