The business has had a rough start. Some companies listed as investors on Open Exchange’s Twitter account have denied any involvement. A financial regulator in Dubai said Open Exchange was operating without a license.
Mr. Zhu said he was tuning out the criticism. On Twitter, he responded to a negative article in The Wall Street Journal by quoting John F. Kennedy: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
“I’ve already created 75 jobs,” he said over dinner in Singapore. “At least these people like me.”
This month, Open Exchange unveiled its own cryptocurrency, called OX, like the animal. The price shot up over a couple of days. “I’m getting early 3AC vibes all over again,” Mr. Davies wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “Nothing compares to the energy of a startup.”
Privately, Mr. Davies has been encouraging Three Arrows’ creditors to trade their bankruptcy claims on Open Exchange. In January, he invited creditors to an “ad hoc 3AC creditor meeting.” But on the call, Mr. Davies spoke the entire time, according to two people familiar with the matter; he ended the session just as someone was trying to ask a question.
In Barcelona last month, Mr. Davies seemed relaxed, and spoke glowingly of the “amazing cafes” on Las Ramblas, a busy thoroughfare that cuts across the heart of the city. One Saturday night, he ate a late dinner at Els Pescadors, a seafood restaurant near the beach, ordering oysters, croquettes, local wine and three rounds of whiskey.
By the end of the meal, Mr. Davies was rattling off business ideas. In Dubai, he said, he has made inquiries about opening a chicken restaurant, possibly in the form of a cloud kitchen, with no storefront. For a while, he and Mr. Zhu considered making a film about Do Kwon and the collapse of Luna. “Our idea was basically that we would do an empathy piece,” he said. “We had a whole team that was going to produce it at Sundance or whatever.”
Mr. Davies has also thought about getting into the artificial intelligence industry. “I would like to believe that I can create two more businesses,” he said. “But I’m also OK with the idea that I’m fully retired at this point.”
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