The Singapore High Court has ordered cryptocurrency lending platform Hodlnaut to undergo liquidation, as stated in a court document dated November 10.
The court has appointed Aaron Loh Cheng Lee and Ee Meng Yen Angela, both from corporate advisory firm EY, as the joint liquidators for Hodlnaut.
The decision comes after the two were initially appointed as interim judicial managers on August 29 to oversee the struggling startup.
Hodlnaut suffered substantial losses amounting to around $190 million due to its investments in the Terra ecosystem, which experienced a significant collapse.
A judicial report revealed that the company’s directors had not fully disclosed the extent of their involvement with the Terra/Luna platform both before and after its downfall in May 2022.
This placed Hodlnaut in a similar position to other financial entities such as Celsius, Voyager Digital, and Three Arrows Capital, which also faced setbacks due to their association with Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin UST.
In response to the crisis, Hodlnaut suspended customer withdrawals in July 2022, citing market conditions and the need to safeguard assets.
By August, the Singapore High Court intervened and appointed two interim judicial managers from EY Corporate Advisors to oversee the startup’s restructuring efforts.
Prior to its liquidation, Hodlnaut offered depositors interest rates as high as 12.73%.
However, with the platform now facing liquidation, the prospects of users recovering their deposits remain uncertain.
The liquidators have acknowledged that addressing individual queries may not be feasible due to the large volume of creditors.
Instead, they plan to provide bulk updates online to keep stakeholders informed.
Hodlnaut Rejects Purchase Offers
A number of potential buyers have shown interest in the embattled cryptocurrency lending company and its claims against now-bankrupt digital asset exchange FTX.
As reported, “various parties who are interested in acquiring” the Singapore-based crypto platform reached out to the interim judicial managers overseeing the company earlier this year after it sought protection from creditors.
As of December 9, Hodlnaut Group owed a combined $160.3 million, which accounts for more than 60% of the company’s outstanding debt, to some major crypto and Fintech companies like Algorand Foundation, Samtrade Custodian, S.A.M. Fintech and Jean-Marc Tremeaux.
Back in August, OPNX, a digital asset exchange created by the founders of failed hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, proposed a takeover of the struggling crypto lender Hodlnaut.
OPNX has offered to inject $30 million worth of FLEX digital tokens into Hodlnaut to fund a partial creditor payout.
The offer was submitted to the court after interim judicial managers overseeing Hodlnaut’s restructuring objected to the distressed firm’s directors emailing the bid directly to its users.
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