Terra Luna Founder Do Kwon on the run as Warrant issued
Do Kwon, the inventor of cryptocurrencies, Terra Luna, issued a warrant by S. Korea and under pursuit by Interpol
Terra Luna was previously seen as the darling coin for many, allowing a currency alternative to USDC that was pegged to the USD. Unfortunately, the coin destabilized in May causing the the value to plunge. When people started dumping Terra en masse, the value of Terra dropped to nearly zeo. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic estimates investors in the two coins lost an estimated $42 billion.
Its collapse caused crypto markets to be unstable for months, as analysts believe the collapse of Terra contributed to the subsequent collapse of the Celsius banking group and Three Arrows Capital hedge funds, which left them with billions of dollars worth of unpaid loans.
The result has finally seen a South Korean court has issuing an arrest warrant for Do Kwon, the primary developer for Luna and TerraUSD, whose spectacular collapse roiled markets around the world.
Many crypto investors lost their life savings in the recent cryptocurrency market collapse. Some wondered whether Terra-Luna was a Ponzi scam from the start. The founder of Terra-Luna, Do Kwon, who has a swashbuckling personality on social media, suddenly became quiet after the recent cryptocurrency market collapse, emerging several weeks later with a plan for a new token, called Luna 2.0, which he says would save the failing project.
While the original TerraLuna’s market capitalisation once counted in the billions, its market cap has mostly remained below 300 million dollars, although over the last few days it has seen an unexpected rise to above 800 million dollars. Some people claim that it was due to new rules set by Terraform Labs, but others believe it could be a calculated pumping from Terraform or DoKwon himself.
On Wednesday, a representative for South Korean prosecutors said an “arraignment warrant” had been issued for six individuals, which includes Do Kwon, who is currently living in Singapore.
He told his first public interview in August that he’d left South Korea because of fears for his family’s safety following an alleged assassination attempt against him.