Arthur Hayes, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, and Akshat Vaidya, the former head of corporate development, founded Maelstrom Capital in 2023 to focus on investment in crypto and digital assets, with Vaidya serving as chief investment officer. At that time, Hayes said that they were targeting infrastructure transactions, and Maelstrom's funds came entirely from the Hayes family. There was no time pressure for capital investment, and he could slowly identify good investment projects. BlockBeats recently interviewed Chief Investment Officer Akshat Vaidya to give us a deeper understanding of Maelstrom’s investment model. The following is a summary report from Chain News.
(Arthur Hayes established venture capital Maelstrom Capital to focus on investing in crypto infrastructure)
Arthur Hayes' role in Maelstrom
Vaidya said he leads a full-time team of six traders, investors and researchers responsible for coming up with investment strategies, executing trades and managing Maelstrom's venture portfolio. The investment team operates independently, with Hayes being the final investment decision-maker and each investment requiring his approval or disapproval. And his macro theory is one of the important references for the team to formulate investment strategies. On the portfolio management side, Hayes is more involved and once he invests in a company, he becomes a supporter of that company and his influence extends almost throughout the entire portfolio.
How is Maelstrom different from VC?
Maelstrom is able to provide its portfolio companies with hands-on operational support that other investors are difficult to provide. As a KOL, Hayes often makes public introductions and calls for orders for his investment projects (Ethena).
And VCs often have capital deployment obligations, so they are more likely to lower their investment standards to ensure money can be put into the market. Additionally, VC funds charge a 2% management fee and a 20% performance bonus, so they have an incentive to continually raise more capital to maximize management fee income. However, family offices do not have this incentive mechanism, so they can focus more on finding good investment opportunities, conduct in-depth due diligence, negotiate better investment terms, and provide substantial assistance to the companies they invest in.
Is Maelstrom investing in meme coins?
Since Hayes often calls out meme coins, Vaidya emphasized that the company views meme coins as a cultural phenomenon and will not look down upon anything that can bring attention and resources to the crypto space. However, Maelstrom, a venture capital fund focused on building infrastructure for a permissionless future, is not directly involved in trading meme coins. On the contrary, it indirectly obtains the value brought by the meme currency phenomenon by investing in the infrastructure that supports the creation and dissemination of meme coins.
Is there another bull market for cryptocurrencies?
Akshat believes that the growth process of the encryption industry is similar to that of children or a developing country, which gradually matures through rapid growth in stages. His entry into the crypto industry in 2013 has been through multiple cycles. And he believes that the next cycle will be driven by the following major factors:
The combination of traditional finance (TradFi) and cryptography
Governments are beginning to consider crypto a strategic priority
Development of the Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN)
There are currently many initial experiments underway in the DePIN field, and success is only a matter of time, which will attract more users, investors, engineers and new application scenarios into the Crypto field. As DePIN matures, encryption technology will be integrated into people's lives in wider areas than we can imagine.
This article unveils the mystery of Maelstrom, the Arthur Hayes family office. How is it different from VC? First appeared in Chain News ABMedia.