A Warrent Is Out For TerraLabs Founder Do Kwon
The South Korean government has issued a warrant for the arrest of TerraForm Labs founder and CEO Do Kwon, following an ongoing investigation into the fall of the Terra ecosystem, according to a Bloomberg report released on Wednesday.
The warrant was reportedly issued concerning violating capital market rules and targets five other individuals currently residing in Singapore.
After de-pegging from the U.S dollar, Terra’s algorithmic UST stablecoin collapsed this past May due partly to large withdrawals from the Terra DeFi platform Anchor. This resulted in billions of people's wealth being eliminated from the market.
The fall of the Terra ecosystem led to massive ripples in the broader crypto market as Bitcoin's price went from $40,000 at the beginning of May to $27,000 not two weeks later.
Individual cryptocurrencies weren't the only ones affected, as big crypto lending firms like Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Celsius, and Voyager Digital went bankrupt, spiraling the market prices even further.
Bitcoin is currently trading at $20,222, down 9.22% over the past 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap.
This is not the South Korean government's first time taking action against TerraLabs, as back in July, prosecutors raided the home of co-founder Daniel Shin as part of a probe into allegations of illegal goin ons leading into the fall of Terra.
Authorities noted during that raid that Kwon must notify the country when he returns; many speculate he will be arrested on sight.
Mr. Kwon reportedly resides in Singapore, which does not have an extradition agreement with South Korea.
Kwon and Terraform Labs are also currently caught in a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Northern California.
Do Kwon claims to be “devastated” by the project's collapse. The Terraform Lab’s co-founder claims to have lost most of his wealth in the crash and denies claims the project was a scam.
The warrant comes at a time when scandals are ridding the industry, but where some of those others have defenders, many call for the arrest of this fallen CEO.