Embattled crypto lender Hodlnaut held $13 million on FTX before withdrawal freeze

Troubled Singapore-based crypto lender Hodlnaut held assets worth $13.1 million (S$18.4 million) as of October 25 on the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. It is unclear whether Hodlnaut’s managers moved funds away from FTX before operations were halted.

The lender under judicial protection also held assets on other centralized exchanges such as Deribit, Binance, OKX and Tokenize for a total of $18.3 million (S$25.7 million), according to court documents dated October 25. Its share on FTX was more than 70% of its holding on centralized exchanges. 

We have reached out to Hodlnaut and will update this article should we hear back.

From one liquidity crisis to another

In August, Hodlnaut halted withdrawals amid a liquidity crisis. It later emerged that it had a nearly $200 million financial shortfall in a court affidavit filed. 

In particular, the document shows that Hodlnaut parked some $317 million in UST, the failed stablecoin, in the Anchor Protocol on Terra as a way to pass high yields through to its customers. In May, Terra’s stablecoin UST sharply de-pegged from the dollar, inflicting losses of $189.7 million on Hodlnaut, per the affidavit. 

On Tuesday, FTX halted withdrawals amid a liquidity crisis. That day, FTX said that it had agreed to an acquisition by rival Binance. Yesterday, that acquisition fell through after Binance reviewed FTX's financials.