Su Zhu, a co-founder of defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), has obtained a restraining order against Arthur Hayes, a co-founder of the BitMEX trading platform, from a Singapore court.
The order dated May 5 and seen by CoinDesk prohibits Hayes from using “threatening, abusive or insulting words” and “making any threatening, abusive or insulting communication, that would cause the Applicant harassment, alarm or distress.”
The former BitMEX CEO has been tweeting at Zhu and his 3AC partner Kyle Davies, mainly asking for $6 million he says is owed following the collapse of the fund last year.
Harassment Court Judge Sandra Looi Ai Lin’s order says Hayes is not allowed to communicate with Zhu “by any means,” and prohibits him from publishing “any identity information.” The ruling can be served to Hayes via his Twitter account, the order said.
Hayes and Zhu have become controversial figures in the crypto industry. Zhu, after the 3AC collapse sent ripple effects through the industry, and Hayes as he avoided a prison sentence with six-months’ home detention after pleading guilty in February 2022 to U.S. federal charges he didn’t implement anti-money laundering (AML) checks at his exchange.
Court filings have showed 3AC owes upwards of $1 billion in individual claims. Zhu and Davies, meantime, moved to launch OPNX, a platform that lets investors trade bankruptcy claims for collapsed firms like FTX and CoinFLEX. The two went silent after 3AC folded, surfacing only in July with a Bloomberg interview – which Hayes mocked on Twitter – where they said the fund’s failure was “regrettable.”
Through tweets, Hayes has criticized attempts by the two to raise funds for their new platform. In one dated April 6, he said he’d heard Zhu and Davies raised “big money” from a sovereign wealth fund in Bahrain.
“Be warned. I want my f****** money,” the tweet said.
Hayes, meanwhile, has set up his own crypto fund, Maelstrom.
CoinDesk has reached out to the Singapore Judiciary and Zhu for further comment and has contacted Hayes over Twitter for a response.
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Ian Allison and Shaurya Malwa contributed reporting.
