Crypto Lender Hodlnaut Is Granted Protection From Creditors

The Singapore High Court granted judicial management to Hodlnaut, giving the struggling crypto lender additional breathing space to come up with a recovery plan. 

Justice Aedit Abdullah approved Angela Ee and Aaron Loh of EY Corporate Advisors Pte. as the interim judicial managers, Hodlnaut said in a statement on its website on Tuesday. In an earlier application, Hodlnaut had proposed Tam Chee Chong of Kairos Corporate Advisory Ltd. as the interim judicial manager. The court announced the decision on Monday, Hodlnaut added.

Judicial management is a process where the court appoints an independent party to take over operations from a company’s directors. During the process, it is protected from claims by creditors and attempts to liquidate its assets.  

Hodlnaut, which operates out of Singapore and Hong Kong, halted withdrawals earlier this month, joining Asian crypto firms including Vauld, Zipmex and Babel Finance in getting swept away by a $2 trillion rout in digital asset markets.   

Singapore is responding to the crypto industry’s turmoil. The head of the city-state’s central bank, Ravi Menon, on Monday said it’s considering additional guardrails around retail investing in digital assets to limit risks.

Read More: Singapore Mulls Making It Harder for People to Trade Crypto

Started in 2019, Hodlnaut allowed investors to earn interest on crypto by lending out their tokens. The firm said in February that it had more than $100 million in customer funds across over 1,000 users, up from $1 million a year earlier.