Three Arrows Capital cryptocurrency owner Kyle Davis shows no remorse and grins after losing $3.5 billion in investor cash

usa news

by Richard Pollina

The co-founder of a failed cryptocurrency hedge fund that lost $3.5 billion in investors' cash grinned, seemingly showing no remorse for losing his money — and he remains on the run in an unknown location. is.

Kyle Davis, co-founder of the bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), appeared on the Unchained podcast on Tuesday and said he believes investors are losing money because “every company goes bankrupt.” He insisted that he had no regrets.

“Are you sorry that your company went bankrupt?” No, just like businesses go bankrupt, almost all businesses go bankrupt, right? ” Davis brazenly told host Laura Shinn.

“It's how we build it or what we do with it. We're definitely doing our best. We can add value in a lot of different ways. At least we're doing the following: We can even teach you how to do things in a better way when the Three Arrows go bankrupt.”

Davis and his partner Hsu Zhu founded 3AC in 2012 and have amassed billions of dollars from investors over time as cryptocurrencies began to attract interest from millions of people around the world. has been secured.

At its peak, the Singapore-based hedge fund managed about $18 billion in crypto assets.

However, according to Capital.com, 3AC suffered significant losses due to the downturn in the crypto market in mid-2022 and the failure of large-scale trades in coins such as LUNA and Terra.

The company subsequently went bankrupt and it was revealed that the hedge fund had borrowed money from more than 20 financial institutions and owed investors billions of dollars.

3AC was first ordered into liquidation by a British Virgin Islands court, and subsequently ordered to repay investors by courts in Singapore and the United States.

However, Davis and Zhu escaped and remained on the run.

Mr. Zhu was arrested at Singapore's Changi Airport in September and sentenced to four months in prison for failing to coordinate with liquidators, but Mr. Davis managed to avoid arrest.

Mr Davis said their sentence was a “surprise” for both him and Mr Zhu. After his partner's arrest, it was revealed that they had missed court dates.

“Obviously, if we weren't going to go to court, you wouldn't be in Singapore, right? But Mr. Zhu was in Singapore,” Ms Davis said.

“Given you had a court date, you'll go. Otherwise you'll be held in contempt of court.”

Mr Davis, who is wanted in Singapore and faces the same possible sentence as his partner, said he had no plans to return home “any time soon” but would consider it if the contempt order was lifted.

“Obviously, these issues will only resolve at some point and there will be a settlement,” he said. “I learned that at the end of the day, all these problems will go away because these are common tactics.”

When Singh asked if he had fired his lawyer because he was allegedly not informed of the trial date, Davis replied, “Maybe I should.”

Davis' whereabouts remain a mystery, but it is speculated that he is hiding in Portugal.

According to CoinDesk, he acquired citizenship in Singapore after renouncing his US citizenship.

In an interview with New York Magazine in February, he claimed to be “in Europe” but did not say whether he was in Portugal.

Singh asked Davis if he could return to the United States to see his family. He said there was no reason to think there would be any repercussions for doing so, but there hasn't been.

Davis also spoke about the collapse of his startup OPNX, which he launched in Duby in April 2023.

Dubai's crypto regulator formally reprimanded OPNX for operating an unregulated exchange months after its launch. According to Coindesk, the exchange was shut down in February.

The failures of 3AC and OPNX occurred around the same time as the collapse of prominent competitors FTX and Binance.

FTX founder Sam Bankman Freed was convicted in 2023 of one of the largest financial frauds in history. At his March 28 sentencing, he could face 40 to 50 years in prison.

Similarly, Qiao Changpeng also pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering violations in November, forcing him to resign as CEO of Binance. His sentencing is scheduled for April 30th.

Before his arrest, Bankman Freed claimed that Davis and Zhu's company 3AC was directly responsible for much of the 2022 cryptocurrency collapse.

“I suspect they are 80 percent of the entire initial contagion,” a disgraced crypto trader told New York Magazine in 2022.

“They weren't the only ones that exploded, but they did it on a much larger scale than anyone else. And before that, they had much higher trust from the ecosystem. .”