Arthur Hayes was born in 1985 in Detroit, Michigan, and is one of the youngest African American Crypto billionaires in history.
He is the co-founder and the former CEO of BitMEX, a cryptocurrency exchange and derivative trading platform owned and operated by the HDR Global Trading Ltd group which is registered in Seychelles.
Personal Life
Hayes attended Nichols School, a private school located in Buffalo, New York.
During his school years, he played varsity tennis as a sport and was a varsity cross-country runner.
After his graduation, his family relocated to Buffalo to search for a school that they felt would help him realize his full potential as a student and as an athlete.
Barbara Hayes, mother of Arthur Hayes said that Nichols gave Arthur the setting, the simulation, and the scholarship he received which he was able to thrive with.
He then went on to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Wharton School of Business as the next step in his educational journey.
Arthur Hayes: Investment Career
After Receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics in 2008 from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to Hong Kong to start his investment banking career.
From the period between 2008-2011, he worked as an equity derivatives trader for both Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.
His position was that as the top Exchange-traded fund(ETF) market maker for both the firms
Hayes left Deutsche Bank in 2011 and worked as a Delta One trader for Citibank until 2013 when he was laid off.
Founding Of BitMEX
Arthur Hayes co-founded the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX in 2014 along with his partners Ben Delo and Samuel Reed.
It soon became one of the largest virtual currency derivative exchanges in the world.
Pushbacks And Controversies
In 2019, on a public debating setup Nouriel Roubini (nicknamed “Dr Doom”), a Turkish-born Iranian-American economic consultant, economist and speaker called Hayes a “sleazy coward”. Later that month, Roubini accused the Crypto world of being filled with dumb financially illiterate ignorami who were naive to even any form of insult of them.
This was not the only incident of Hayes receiving heat for his actions.
In 2020 October Hayes and his partners were all indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice which claimed Hayes and his partners of not having registered the company in the United States despite having ‘thousands of US-based customers’.
BitMEX also later on became the first crypto exchange to be charged under the Bank Secrecy Act accusing it of not reporting on their trades that exceeded over $10,000.
Hayes with the growing pressure stepped down from BitMEX in October 2021 and was replaced by Alexander Hoptner as CEO of BitMEX.
Hayes ultimately turned himself into US authorities in Hawaii in April 2021 and was later freed on bond.
Accounting for Hayes as a first-time offender and his long and impressive record of philanthropic donations in the past, he was only given two-year probation without incarceration, six months of home confinement, and a fine of $10 million dollars.
Recent Activities
Arthur Heyes on June 2024 released an article on the BitMEX blog titled “Group of Fools” in which he talked about the impact of the policies of the central bank on the global economy.
In this article, he emphasized the role and relationship between interest rates and their inflation targets, while speculating about the decisions that will be taken by the G7 central banks about the current financial scenario.
Hayes in the article referred to the implications of changing policies and the disruptions that they bring to the global markets.
The food for thought that Heyes presented to the reader of the article was the question of whether or not the Federal Reserve will start cutting rates of interest this close to the election in response to the global financial rate changes.
He also humorously cited the recent political fiasco between the popular presidential candidates and talked about his willingness to be flexible in his thinking.
Final Thoughts
Arthur Hayes, having secured a career like the one he has had and paving the way for several first-of-its-kind business ventures Hayes is not someone who you can call lazy or cowardly by any margin
He has been one of the most influential trendsetters in the cryptocurrency market having taken up a varying number of philanthropic projects to become one of the most impactful entrepreneurs we have seen until now in both financial sense and otherwise.
