The Monetary Authority of Singapore issued nine-year prohibition orders against Three Arrows Capital founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies for flagrant breaches of securities law, following the crypto hedge fund's $3.5 billion collapse. Su Zhu was arrested at Changi Airport in September 2023 for failing to cooperate with liquidators and served a four-month committal sentence.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore orders, effective September 13, 2023, bar both men from conducting regulated investment activity in Singapore for nine years. The regulator found the pair had provided false information, failed to notify it of key changes at the fund, and operated without adequate risk management. Three Arrows Capital — once one of crypto's most celebrated hedge funds, managing as much as $10 billion at its peak — had filed for bankruptcy in June 2022 after the implosion of the Terra ecosystem wiped out its heavily leveraged bets.
The founders' post-collapse conduct then became its own saga. On September 29, 2023, Su Zhu was apprehended at Changi Airport while attempting to leave Singapore, under a committal order granted four days earlier at the request of Teneo, the fund's liquidator. The order — a civil instrument punishing contempt of court — sentenced him to four months in prison for failing to cooperate with the liquidation. A parallel committal order was issued against Kyle Davies, whose whereabouts remain unknown. During his imprisonment, Teneo's lawyers questioned Su Zhu as the liquidators pursued more than $1.3 billion for creditors. Su Zhu was never criminally charged in Singapore; the liquidation remained a civil matter. He was released after serving the committal term and was subsequently questioned by the liquidators as they continued hunting for assets. The two founders, who met at university, had built Three Arrows Capital from 2012 into a crypto powerhouse before leverage destroyed it.
The pair's notoriety only grew. Even as liquidators chased them, Su Zhu and Kyle Davies launched OPNX, a platform for trading bankruptcy claims from failed crypto firms including FTX — an announcement met with derision, particularly after named backers denied any investment. The Monetary Authority of Singapore ban, among the longest ever imposed on individuals in Singapore finance, signalled how seriously the regulator viewed the fund's deceptions.
Three Arrows Capital's collapse became the defining failure of the 2022 crypto winter — the moment the industry's most aggressive leverage strategies met reality, taking lenders and investors down with them. For Singapore, which had courted crypto with open arms, the saga prompted a lasting regulatory chill and a reputation it is still working to repair.