Singapore charges former Hodlnaut CEO Zhu Juntao over Terra collapse claims

Zhu allegedly directed staff to publish false claims that Hodlnaut had no direct exposure to the TerraUSD collapse on Telegram and in customer emails.

What to know:

• Singapore charged former Hodlnaut CEO Zhu Juntao with six fraud offenses for misleading customers about the firm's TerraUSD exposure in 2022.
• Zhu allegedly directed staff to publish false claims that Hodlnaut had no direct exposure to the TerraUSD collapse on Telegram and in customer emails.
• Hodlnaut lost an estimated $189.7M from Terra collapse exposure, after channeling $317M in user funds into Terra's Anchor Protocol.

Singapore authorities have charged the former CEO of collapsed crypto lender Hodlnaut Zhu Juntao with fraud, nearly four years after the firm froze withdrawals during the collapse of the TerraUSD ecosystem.

The Singapore Police Force said that Zhu faces six charges of fraud by false representation in an announcement on Tuesday. Prosecutors allege Zhu directed employees in 2022 to publish false statements on Hodlnaut’s Telegram channels and in customer emails claiming the company had no direct exposure to TerraUSD’s collapse, and had not suffered losses as a result.

Authorities also alleged Zhu repeated similar claims on his personal X account, then known as Twitter, in three posts in June 2022. If convicted, Zhu could face up to 20 years in prison, fines, or both on each charge under Singapore law.

Zhu disputed all six charges in court and was given a pre-trial conference date in June 2026, according to local media reports.

Hodlnaut was one of several crypto lenders that failed after the implosion of Terraform Labs’ algorithmic stablecoin ecosystem in May 2022. The collapse erased about $40 billion from the crypto market and contributed to failures at firms including Three Arrows Capital, Celsius and Voyager.

Reports filed during Hodlnaut's restructuring proceedings indicated the company had channelled roughly $317 million of user funds into Terra's Anchor Protocol, which was offering around 19.5% in annualized yield on UST deposits before the collapse, which saw UST become almost worthless.

Court-appointed judicial managers later estimated Hodlnaut lost about $189.7 million from exposure to the Terra collapse. Reports reviewed during restructuring proceedings said the company had poor internal recordkeeping and that some executives did not fully cooperate with investigators.

Singapore-based Hodlnaut, which was founded in 2019, offered customers yield-bearing crypto accounts and served more than 30,000 users globally before halting withdrawals in August 2022.

The company later entered judicial management and was ordered into liquidation by the Singapore High Court.

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