Do Kwon Pleads Not Responsible to US Fees Over Terra LUNA, UST Crash – Decrypt

Alleged crypto criminal Do Kwon pleaded pleaded not responsible in a New York court docket Thursday to U.S. felony expenses over the 2022 collapse of the Terra crypto ecosystem, following his extradition earlier this week from Montenegro.Feds hit the 33-year-old disgraced tech entrepreneur with 9 felony counts, together with securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud, and conspiracy to commit cash laundering. He agreed Thursday to be held with out bail earlier than U.S. Justice of the Peace Choose Robert Lehrburger, Internal Metropolis Press reported.Kwon based Terra, a once-sizable crypto ecosystem with apps constructed across the LUNA token and the TerraUSD (UST) algorithmic stablecoin. The mission was fashionable with traders, and quickly grew to change into the second-biggest blockchain within the sphere after Ethereum by early 2022.
[Do Kwon is flipping through the superseding indictment – then tutns to his second lawyer]Choose: How do you plead?Not responsible [through counsel Chesley who adds, We consent to detention without prejudice
— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) January 2, 2025Its native cryptocurrency, LUNA, was in its prime as one of the top digital assets by market cap. Kwon made a lot of money, very quickly, and even mocked “poor” people on X (formerly known as Twitter).But Terra collapsed in May 2022, taking $40 billion of investors' money with it. The crash led to a brutal bear market, as many crypto projects with exposure to the project later declared bankruptcy.The project's main product, the UST stablecoin, couldn't keep its stable peg to the dollar, resulting in the entire ecosystem collapsing and losing nearly all of its value in a matter of days.Authorities in both the U.S. and South Korea now allege that the entrepreneur was a scammer who conned investors into buying his cryptocurrency.”Behind the scenes, core Terraform products did not work as Kwon advertised, and were manipulated to create the illusion of a functioning and decentralized financial system in order to lure investors,” Thursday's indictment reads.Kwon was arrested in Montenegro last year for allegedly attempting to travel on a fake passport. His lawyers kept him in the country until Tuesday, when he was finally extradited to the United States.Edited by Andrew HaywardDaily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.