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Korean Prosecutors Say Do Kwon and His Colleagues Knew Terra Was Unviable from the Beginning

Policy & Regulation·April 11, 2023, 1:50 AM

Korean prosecutors claimed that Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon and the key members behind the Terra-LUNA crash were aware of the project’s unviability from the beginning, according to a file issued by the Seoul Southern District Court.

Terraform Labs logo
©Terraform Labs

 

Terraform Labs founders misleading Korean investors

Terraform Labs founders Do Kwon and Daniel Shin attracted 280,000 investors in Korea alone, claiming that the Terra stablecoin is a means of transaction, even though the company leaders had been notified by the financial authority that Terra-accepting businesses were impermissible. It is reported that during a search and seizure of the company, Korean prosecutors collected evidence that its employees shared such knowledge on their internal messaging system.

 

Terra’s cross trading on crypto exchanges

Knowing their cryptocurrency’s unviability, Terra executives registered its sister token LUNA for listing on major Korean crypto exchanges in May 2019. According to the Korean prosecution, they used a bot to create a trade volume of more than 800 million won in three domestic crypto exchanges by cross trading between 2019 and early last year.

Cross trading is illegal in the stock market, as it is considered as an act of price manipulation, but LUNA was traded in crypto exchanges and it hasn’t been determined whether their token is a security or not. Under current Korean law, the court has to accept it as a security to punish those behind the Terra collapse.

 

Shin’s denial of allegations

Meanwhile, Daniel Shin denied the prosecution’s allegations and argued that they had never received such a notice from the financial regulator.

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