Crypto Entrepreneur Convicted of Fraud – E24

The collapse of the “stablecoin” TerraUSD shocked the cryptocurrency market.

South Korean Do Kwon, 32, and the company he helped found, Terraform, were found guilty of fraud in a civil case, several international media outlets wrote on Friday.

A New York jury found that the entrepreneur and company falsely claimed their technology had been used by a popular Korean payment app. They also found that investors were misled about how stable it was stablecoinstablecoinIt must reflect the prices of other currencies or raw materials It was TerraUSD.

Filed by the Financial Supervision Authority

The US Financial Supervision Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit last year, accusing the founder and the company of defrauding investors.

In this round, the SEC only asked the jury to weigh the question of guilt, he writes Bloomberg.

The inspectorate wants the case to have financial consequences for the perpetrators and not allow Kwon and Terraform to do similar things again.

Terraform filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year.

Kwon did not attend the two-week trial. He was arrested in Montenegro last year.

There will be a separate criminal case against the accused.

– Trying to rebuild

Luis Pellegrino, a lawyer for Terraform, told the jury on Friday that the regulator's case was built on messages taken out of context, and that Terraform and Kwon were honest about their products and how they worked, even when they failed.

Terraform is still trying to rebuild, Pellegrino said according to the report Reuters.

The company's collapse in 2022 shocked the cryptocurrency world and caused $40 billion in investor money to evaporate, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The amount includes the total amount lost by investors on TerraUSD and LunaLunaAnother cryptocurrency that is more traditional, but has been closely linked to TerraUSDWhich Kwon was behind.

TerraUSD is pegged to the dollar. However, the value of Terra fell to well below $1, the level at which it was originally supposed to be pegged. A number of cryptocurrencies were caught off guard and had their value plummet in connection with the incident.