‘ Sorry? No’ – 3AC founder launders $6B BTC for fast food worker: Asia Express

East Asia's weekly news roundup reviews the industry's most important developments.

3AC's Kyle Davis throws lenders under the bus, again

Kyle Davis, the co-founder of bankrupt Singaporean hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), has washed away responsibility for the failure of his respective companies. On a March 19 Uncovered podcast, Davis reiterated that he had no regrets about his involvement in the collapse of 3AC, which is facing $3.3 billion in creditor claims:

“Would I be sad that a company went bankrupt? No, it's just that companies go bankrupt all the time,” Davis said. “Maybe at the very least, we can tell them how to do things better when they go bankrupt for the next three arrows.”

Despite an arrest warrant issued in contempt of a Singapore court, Davies has since claimed Singapore citizenship, has no intention of returning to the city-state to serve his sentence and is currently “bouncing back and forth between Europe and Asia”. Regular readers of Asia Express will note that Davies has made no mention of a return to the Middle East, home to his infamous Dubai chicken restaurant.

Although Davis is currently on the run, his former 3AC venture with co-founder Su Zhu seems to have not worked out well. After last year's 3AC Ventures, the firm appears to have gone offline at the time of publication. OPNX, an exchange founded by Davis and Zhu in April 2023, also closed earlier this year.

A British national has been found guilty of defrauding China of $6 billion in crypto fraud

British woman Jian Wen, 42, was found guilty by a London jury of siphoning $6 billion worth of bitcoins to Ximin Qian, a Chinese man masterminding an investment scam in mainland China.

According to a March 20 Bloomberg report, Qian defrauded more than 130,000 investors in 10 investment vehicles, converted the money into Bitcoin, and emigrated to England in 2017, where she met Wen.

At the time, Wen worked at a fast food takeaway in East London, but within a few weeks he quickly transitioned to the luxury lifestyle. In the year In 2018, London police seized more than 61,000 bitcoins, worth $4.0 billion at the time, in a domestic violence case involving two women.

The money laundering scam only came to light when Wen tried to buy a luxury apartment in London with the stolen money but failed to explain the source of his wealth, attracting the attention of the authorities. Kian fled Britain, Wen denied all charges despite a guilty verdict. There is currently no extradition treaty between the UK and China.

Hong Kong public company spends $14.4 million in crypto.

Hong Kong audio and video equipment manufacturer Yuxing Infotech has released 110 Bitcoin (BTC) and 2,012 Ethereum for stablecoins worth nearly $14 million. According to the March 21 announcement, the swap was conducted by institutional crypto exchange OSL, and Yuxing's profit totaled $6.4 million.

“Given the current cryptocurrency market, the board believes that the time is right to invest in Yuxing Infotech Group,” the firm said in a statement.

Although Yuxing's core business is in manufacturing and Internet data centers, the company has been mining Bitcoin heavily, and was mining Ethereum before the merger update. In the year In 2022, Yuxing purchased 6,832 Bitmain T17E Bitcoin miners for HKD $60 million ($7.67 million). In Q3 2023, the company reported a net loss of $19.5 million, an increase of 23.38% over the previous year.

Do Kwon is to be deported to South Korea this week.

In the year Former Terraform Labs founder and CEO Do Kwon, who played a key role in Terra Luna's $40 billion ecosystem by 2022, will be transferred from Montenegro to South Korea on March 24.

Local news outlet Hancock Ilbo reported that in a competing extradition request between the US and South Korea, a Montenegrin appeals court ruled that Kwon should be extradited to South Korea as soon as the application was first received.

Because there is no direct flight, Korean prosecutors allow repatriation to go through a third country, and Kwon immediately executes the arrest warrant when he boards a Korean national airliner.

Once back home, Kwon faces criminal fraud charges and civil claims from more than 200,000 South Korean investors who lost money in the Terra Luna explosion. Kwon's accomplice, Han Chang-joon, was extradited to South Korea last month. The two served four months in a Montenegrin prison for trying to travel with false documents.

South Korea's Ministry of Science will set aside 50 billion won ($37.5 million) to create a national Metaverse fund to support small and medium-sized businesses and venture firms. According to local news agency News 1 Korea, the fund will focus on investing in popular projects that specialize in the intersection of metaverse, generative AI and virtual reality.

Hwang Gyu-cheol, director of software policy at the Ministry of Science, said: “We hope that the strong financial support from Metaverse Fund will expand development opportunities and enable us to enter the international market.

The World Economic Forum says that by 2030, more than 700 cities around the world will have their own footprint in Meta University. Currently, the city of Seoul has allocated 180 million dollars to develop Metabis infrastructure. Users can currently create avatars, visit historical landmarks, and participate in public games in the Seoul Metaverse.

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Zhiyuan Sun

Zhyuan Sun is a reporter at Cointelegraph, focusing on technology-related news. He has several years of experience writing for major financial media outlets such as The Motley Fool, Nasdaq.com and Seeking Alpha.