The Crypto Geniuses Who Vaporized a Trillion Dollars
Everyone trusted the two guys at Three Arrows Capital. They knew what they were doing right?By Jen Wieczner, New York Magazine Intelligencer, Aug. 15, 2022
No matter that they had originally told friends they were shopping for a $150 million vessel; the superyacht was still the largest by well-established boat builder Sanlorenzo ever to be sold in Asia, a triumph of cryptos nouveau riche. It represents the beginning of a fascinating journey, the yacht broker said in an announcement of the sale last year, saying it looked forward to witnessing many happy moments aboard. The name the buyers had in mind was cleverly chosen an inside joke nodding to the cryptocurrency dogecoin that would both thrill their social-media acolytes and be intelligible to all the pathetic, poor no coiners out there: Much Wow.
Her buyers, Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, two Andover graduates who ran a Singapore-based crypto hedge fund called Three Arrows Capital, never got the chance to spray Champagne across Much Wows bow. Instead, in July, the same month the boat was set to launch, the duo filed for bankruptcy and disappeared before making their final payment, marooning the unclaimed trophy in her berth in La Spezia on the Italian coast. While she has not been officially listed for resale, the intimate world of international super-yacht dealers has quietly been put on notice that a certain Sanlorenzo 52Steel, the coveted Cayman Islands flag billowing above her empty balconies, is back on the market. (emphasis mine - Pinback)
The yacht has since become the subject of endless memes and jokes on Twitter, the functional center of the crypto universe. Pretty much everyone in that world, from the millions of small-scale crypto holders to industry employees and investors, has watched in shock and dismay as Three Arrows Capital, once perhaps the most highly regarded investment fund in a burgeoning global financial sector, collapsed in excruciating and embarrassing fashion. The firms implosion, a result of both recklessness and likely criminal misconduct, set off a contagion that not only forced a historic sell-off in bitcoin and its ilk but also wiped out a wide swath of the cryptocurrency industry.
- More at link: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/three-arrows-capital-kyle-davies-su-zhu-crash.html
- The Much Wow, a 52Steel yacht by Sanlorenzo
TygrBright
(20,763 posts)keithbvadu2
(36,836 posts)Pinback
(12,159 posts)of the pyramid, until the pyramid came tumbling down.
Wonder Why
(3,224 posts)then realized my zillions were in bitcoin with Three Arrows Capital!
Oh, well! All my money is now in Russian Rubles and Trump's re-election campaign. I'll soon make back the zillions.
[sarcasm off]
keithbvadu2
(36,836 posts)His fundraising schemes often talk of multiple matching funds -3x, 5x, 7x, 10x.
I have even seen 13x and 15x.
I believe. I have the faith.
====================
Donald, I'll send you $1,000.
You get the 700% match, making it $8,000 total. You send me back $3,000 and keep the $5,000. I will verify that you improved my economy and you get $5,000 that you did not have before.
Win/win for both of us.
I'm not greedy.
You get more than half.
Wonder Why
(3,224 posts)That's not very nice. What did he ever do to you? Are you Quacked up?
Oops! Never mind. Wrong Donald.
Can I have some of that action?
keithbvadu2
(36,836 posts)All we have to do is trust the Trumps.
GenThePerservering
(1,824 posts)hatrack
(59,588 posts), teaches his sons the difference between trying to snap a single arrow effortless and trying to break three arrows together impossible."
If these clowns had ever bothered to watch Akira Kurosawa's Ran, they might have gotten the point (of the whole movie, really) that three arrows together can and do break, to the ruin of all.