Zhu Juntao, co-founder and former CEO of crypto lender Hodlnaut, was charged in a Singapore court on May 26, 2026, with fraud by false representation. The charges stem from the Terra/LUNA collapse nearly four years ago, which inflicted a $193 million financial shortfall on the firm and stranded more than 30,000 users worldwide. The Singapore Police Force's Commercial Affairs Department announced the charges; an investigation into Hodlnaut and its directors began in November 2022.
The six charges
Zhu faces three counts under Section 424A(1)(a) read with Section 424A(3) of Singapore's Penal Code, and three more under the same provision read with Section 109 (abetment). Each charge carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years imprisonment, a fine, or both. The charges cover the period from May to July 2022, immediately after TerraUSD de-pegged.
The alleged deception
According to prosecutors, Zhu directed employees to make misleading statements on Hodlnaut's Telegram group and in emails. The company posted that it had 'not taken any losses as a firm' and that only users who personally held UST were affected. Zhu also allegedly directed an employee to email 30 recipients stating the company had assumed no losses. Judicial managers and on-chain analytics later confirmed Hodlnaut lost nearly $190 million through exposure to the collapsed Terra ecosystem—directly contradicting those earlier statements.
The actual damage
Court documents filed in Singapore in August 2022 disclosed a $193 million financial shortfall. An additional $13.1 million in user assets were stranded on the collapsed FTX exchange. Hodlnaut was ordered to liquidate by Singapore's High Court, with EY partners appointed as joint liquidators. The four-year gap between Hodlnaut's collapse and the former CEO's court appearance reflects the slow pace of legal processing for crypto failures.
Next steps
Zhu indicated he was not guilty and disputed all charges at his May 26 hearing. A pre-trial conference has been scheduled for June 2026. This case is part of the accountability reckoning following the 2022 crypto contagion, which also included failures of Celsius, Voyager, Three Arrows Capital, and FTX—costing retail users hundreds of billions of dollars.
