The Crypto Geniuses Who Vaporized a Trillion Dollars

Zhu’s and Davies’s public personae became even more extreme; their tweets were increasingly pompous, and social acquaintances say they didn’t bother to hide their condescension toward friends from the past and less wealthy contemporaries. “They have very little empathy toward most people, especially normal commoners,” says a onetime friend.

Three Arrows was known for high staff turnover, most notably among the traders, who groused that they never received recognition for winning trades but were insulted as stupid when they screwed up — even their wages were garnished and their bonuses reduced. (Still, 3AC traders were highly sought after in the industry; before the fund’s collapse, Steve Cohen’s hedge fund, Point72, was interviewing a team of 3AC traders to potentially poach for its systematic trading unit.)

Zhu and Davies kept the inner workings of the firm cloaked in secrecy. Only the two of them could move money between certain crypto wallets, and most Three Arrows employees had no idea how much money the company was managing. Although the staff complained of long hours, Zhu was reluctant to hire new people, worried that they would “leak trade secrets,” says the friend. In Zhu’s view, Three Arrows was doing anyone who worked for it a favor. “Su said they should be paid instead for offering valuable learning opportunities to employees,” the friend adds. Some business acquaintances in Singapore described the 3AC founders as playacting characters from a 1980s Wolf of Wall Street trading floor.

Both were now married fathers with young children, and they had become exercise fanatics, working out as much as six times a week and going on calorie-restricted diets. Zhu chiseled himself down to about 11 percent body fat and posted his shirtless “updates” on Twitter. On at least one occasion, a friend recalls, he called his personal trainer “fat.” Asked about his drive to become “massive,” Zhu told an interviewer, “I was super-weak for most of my life. After COVID, I got a personal trainer. I got two kids, so it’s just like wake up, play with your kids, go to work, go to the gym, come back, put them to sleep. Shitpost in between.”

Although not quite billionaires yet, Zhu and Davies began treating themselves to some of the luxuries of the superrich. In September 2020, Zhu purchased a $20 million mansion, known in Singapore as a “good-class bungalow,” under his wife’s name. The following year, he bought another one in his daughter’s name for $35 million. (Friends say that Davies eventually upgraded to a GCB too, after becoming a citizen of Singapore, but that the house was still under renovation and he hadn’t yet moved in.)

In person, though, Zhu was still an introvert who wasn’t big on small talk. Davies was the outspoken one in the firm’s business dealings as well as socially. Some acquaintances who had first encountered the pair on Twitter found them surprisingly understated in person. Davies had a hipster vibe. “He has heavy disdain for a lot of mainstream, popular stuff,” says a onetime friend. When he became wealthy, Davies went to some trouble to purchase and customize a Toyota Century, the exclusive model of limo drivers in Japan. It’s a simple-looking car but costs about as much as a Lamborghini. “He was very proud it was the only Japanese taxi in Singapore,” says another friend.