Do Kwon, the co-founder of Terraform Labs who may be facing legal actions in South Korea and the United States, is also the target of a lawsuit in Singapore along with the Luna Foundation Guard, or LFG, and Terra founding member Nicholas Platias. In a lawsuit filed in Singapore’s high court on Sept. 23, 359 individuals alleged Kwon, Platias, LFG, and Terra made fraudulent claims including that Terra’s stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) — now TerraUSD Classic (USTC) — was not “stable by design” and unable to maintain its U.S. dollar peg. The claimants sought compensation for roughly $57 million worth of …
Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Christy Goldsmith Romero has pointed to the collapse of the Terra ecosystem and its flow-on effects as an example of how contagion risks within crypto markets are similar to those experienced by the traditional financial (TradFi) system during the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008. Romero suggested in a speech given at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association’s (ISDA) Crypto Forum on Oct. 26 that increased links between crypto markets and TradFi increases the risk posed by crypto to overall financial stability, noting: “The digital asset market remains relatively small and contained from the level …
Respected former decentralized finance (DeFi) project founder and developer Andre Cronje has resurfaced after a lengthy hiatus to call for tighter regulations on the crypto sector amid the implosion of multiple firms this year. The comments echo similar sentiments to that of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), who also called for more stringent digital asset industry standards last week, including greater consumer protections, transparency, and disclosures. SBF was met with strong community pushback however, with many people accusing the CEO of trying to monopolize or censor the DeFi space, among other things. In an Oct. 25 blog post titled “The …
The CEO of venture capital firm Hashed and early Terra (LUNC) investor Kim Seo-joon has cited “extreme stress” following the Terra crash as the reason for his no-show at South Korea’s National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee. Seo-joon was one of six people selected to take part in the South Korean parliament’s latest inquiry to better understand the events that led to the infamous $40 billion wipe out of Terra’s cryptocurrencies, according to an Oct. 24 article from the Korea Economic Daily. According to a letter from Seo-joon, he suffered severe mental harm from the following the sudden collapse of LUNC …
The current crypto bear market has induced panic, fear and uncertainty in investors. The dire situation started when the global crypto market capitalization dropped below the $2 trillion mark in January 2022. Since then, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has decreased by over 70% from its all time-high of $69,044.77 it reached on November 10, 2021. Similarly, the values of other major cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX), and Dogecoin (DOGE) have decreased by around 90%. So does history tell us anything about when the bear market will end? Let’s start by examining the causes of the …
Members of a 4,400-strong Discord group called the “UST Restitution Group” (URG) have been attempting to track down the whereabouts of Terra co-founder Do Kwon. Members of the group, seemingly out of frustration at the lack of results from law enforcement agencies, are scouring the internet for clues and sharing them with the group in an attempt to track down Kwon. Members have suggested that he could be residing in places such as Russia, Dubai, Azerbaijan, or even on a yacht. Their continuing efforts come despite authorities in South Korea taking significant steps to bring Kwon to justice, with a …
The International Criminal Police Organization is reportedly planning to strengthen its crackdown on cryptocurrency-related crimes by forming a dedicated division. Interpol, the world’s largest global police organization, has set up a special team in Singapore to help governments fight crimes involving virtual assets, the Indian news agency Business Standard reported on Oct. 17. Interpol made the announcement at a press conference ahead of its 90th general assembly in Delhi, which is to be attended by high-profile police officials from its 195 members from Oct. 18 until Oct. 21. According to Interpol secretary general Jürgen Stock, the absence of a legal …
On Monday, developers of the Terra ecosystem, which consists of Luna Classic (LUNC), TerraUSD (USTC), and Luna 2.0 (LUNA), proposed a revised expansion program for allocating 95 million LUNA ($248 million). As told by Terra, the new proposal is designed to incentivize development in the Terra ecosystem and fix issues in the original proposal. In the original plan, around 10% of LUNA's total supply, or 100 million LUNA, would be allocated to the ecosystem, with 80% of this amount going to developer mining rewards. However, Terra staff explains that there are only a handful of projects with total value locked …
Crypto market turbulence can be an immensely stressful time for customer support staff at crypto exchanges, with companies vastly bolstering headcounts just to meet demand during surges. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Alex Harper, co-founder and CEO of Australian crypto exchange SwyftX said that “no matter what your role title is [...] no one was above customer support at Swyft." He said that he, along with staff members from human resources and the CFO have had to work late into the night on occasion to assist their customer support teams when markets go crazy, explaining: “Elon Musk quotes posts about Dogecoin, you …
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce, released an initial public draft highlighting the various security considerations in relation to the architecture and implementation of stablecoins. Based on the study of the top 20 stablecoins over the past year, NIST found that the top five coins that retained their peg represented 87 % of the total top 20 market capitalization. Out of the lot, the top 5 stablecoins based on market capitalization that managed to maintain their pegs are listed below. Coincidentally, all five tokens are pegged to the …
The warrant for Yoo Mo, the head of the business team of Terraform Labs, has reportedly been dismissed less than 48 hours after it had been issued. According to an Oct. 6 report from South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, Judge Hong Jin-Pyo of the Seoul Southern District Court said it was difficult to see the “necessity and significance” of arresting Yoo. The prosecutors’ office in the same jurisdiction reportedly issued a bench warrant for the Terraform Labs exec on Oct. 5 for charges including violating the Capital Markets Act and fraud by manipulating the price of TerraUSD (UST) — now …
South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday issued an order for Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon to surrender his passport. The fugitive co-founder must hand over his Korean passport to authorities within 14 days of the said order. A failure to comply with the order will result in the cancellation of his passport altogether. The official order also warned that failure to comply will lead to the rejection of requests for re-issuance in the future. Another local report noted that the passport return order was issued for a total of six Terraform Labs employees including Kwon. South Korean authorities …