Tag: Terra

Terra co-founder indicted for forging legal documents

by Blockchain News

Prosecutors in Montenegro have issued indictments to Do Kwon, the former co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, for allegedly forging legal documents. Kwon was arrested on March 23 while attempting to board a private plane at an airport in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. According to reports, he was using fake documents while attempting to board a flight to Dubai. Following Kwon’s arrest, Han Chang-jun, Terraform’s former chief financial officer, was also arrested in Podgorica and is facing similar charges.

The Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Podgorica has now indicted Kwon for his alleged involvement in the forgery of legal documents. The Korean industry-focused news agency Block Media reported on April 20 that the Montenegro prosecutors had requested an extension of the detention period for the two former Terraform executives after issuing the indictments.

Meanwhile, Shin Hyun-seung, another co-founder of Terraform, also known as Daniel Shin, is still walking free in South Korea. Local authorities have attempted to arrest Shin, but the Seoul Southern District Court denied the request. After questioning Shin, the court stated that there was little likelihood that he would flee or destroy any evidence related to the fall of Terra.

The news of Kwon’s indictment comes amid global prosecutors reaching major milestones in procedures involving some cryptocurrency executives. On April 20, the Turkish police detained Faruk Fatih Ozer, founder and former CEO of Thodex, who allegedly fled Turkey with $2 billion stolen from the exchange in 2021.

Terraform Labs is a blockchain-based platform that enables the creation of stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies. The company was founded in 2018 by Do Kwon, Daniel Shin, and Ryan John King. The platform’s native token, LUNA, has seen significant growth in recent months, reaching an all-time high of $22.41 on April 4, 2021. Terraform Labs has raised over $25 million in funding to date and has partnerships with several major companies, including Binance and Huobi.

However, the company has faced significant challenges in recent months. In February 2021, the price of LUNA plummeted after the company’s Mirror Protocol was hit by a flash loan attack, resulting in a loss of $370,000. The company has also faced criticism over the high fees associated with using its platform.

Terraform Labs has been actively working to address these issues and has announced several new initiatives in recent weeks. The company is reportedly working on a new stablecoin pegged to the South Korean won, and is also exploring the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on its platform. Despite the challenges, Terraform Labs remains a major player in the cryptocurrency industry and is likely to continue to drive innovation and growth in the sector.

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Terra’s Partnership with Washington Nationals Raises Eyebrows

by Blockchain News

Baseball fans attending the opening day of the Major League Baseball (MLB) season at Nationals Park in Washington D.C. were greeted with an unexpected sight – the prominent display of Terra, the cryptocurrency ecosystem that collapsed in May 2022. A Twitter user who attended The Washington Nationals’ home opener against the Atlanta Braves on March 30 shared an image of Terra prominently displayed on a banner with the slogan, “a decentralized economy needs decentralized money.”

While some attendees were intrigued by the appearance of Terra, others were left questioning the wisdom of the partnership between Terra and the Washington Nationals. One Twitter user noted that the Terra Club, a VIP pre-game venue experience, was located behind home plate at Nationals Park, with “a big sign in left center” promoting Terra.

The partnership between Terra and the Washington Nationals had been in effect since February 2022, just months before Terra’s collapse. The Terra community had committed $38.2 million in TerraUSD (UST) over five years to secure the deal. Terra’s founder, Do Kwon, proposed the partnership through the community’s governance platform.

However, the timing of the collapse of Terra has left some investors in the cryptocurrency wondering if they will ever see a return on their investment. In May 2022, Terra’s price plummeted, wiping out billions of dollars in market value. The collapse was attributed to a combination of factors, including a lack of transparency, poor risk management, and overreliance on leverage.

Adding to the uncertainty surrounding Terra is the arrest of its founder, Do Kwon. Kwon is currently in police custody in Montenegro and is reportedly facing harsh conditions in the penal system. According to an unnamed criminal defense lawyer cited in a March 29 Protos report, the conditions at Montenegro’s jails and prisons “haven’t changed” from those described in a 2020 human rights report by the United States State Department. The report cited a 2015 case in which prison officers were convicted of torturing and “inflicting grievous bodily harm” on 11 inmates.

Despite the collapse of Terra and the arrest of its founder, the partnership with the Washington Nationals remains in effect. The prominent display of Terra at Nationals Park raises questions about the wisdom of partnering with a cryptocurrency ecosystem that has experienced such a dramatic collapse. It also highlights the potential risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies, which remain largely unregulated and subject to extreme volatility.

In conclusion, the appearance of Terra at Nationals Park during the Washington Nationals’ home opener on March 30 has drawn attention to the cryptocurrency ecosystem’s collapse and its partnership with the baseball team. While some attendees were intrigued by Terra’s message of “decentralized money,” others were left questioning the wisdom of partnering with a company that has experienced such a dramatic collapse. The arrest of Terra’s founder, Do Kwon, and the potential risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies underscore the need for caution when investing in these emerging technologies.

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Terra co-founder sought for arrest

by Blockchain News

South Korean authorities are intensifying their efforts to track down and arrest Shin Hyun-Seong, also known as Daniel Shin, co-founder of cryptocurrency platform Terra. This follows the recent arrest of his fellow co-founder, Do Kwon, who was detained in Montenegro while attempting to board a plane using fake travel documents.

The authorities have suspected the involvement of numerous Terra colleagues in promoting unstable investment opportunities with Terra (LUNA) and TerraUSD (UST) tokens since November 2022. However, with Kwon’s arrest on March 23, 2023, they are now making a fresh attempt at Shin’s arrest, according to a Bloomberg report. The prosecutors are reportedly undertaking a renewed push to detain Shin, but no official announcement has been made public in this regard.

Authorities have previously alleged that Shin earned roughly $105 million in profits from illegal sales of LUNA tokens before Terra’s collapse. However, Shin claims to have had no involvement in Terra after January 2020, as evidenced by his LinkedIn profile. Nonetheless, arrest warrants have been sought for Shin, along with three investors and four engineers, on charges of fraud, breach of duty, violation of capital markets law, and illegal fundraising.

Meanwhile, Kwon remains detained in Montenegro after being caught with fake travel documents. While his legal representative claims that there was no intended use of fake documents, the Montenegrin court approved the extension of Kwon’s detention by 30 days upon request by the authorities. Kwon’s identity was not clearly identified, and he is considered a foreign national.

Terra, founded in 2018, is a blockchain-based platform that enables users to transact with stablecoins backed by fiat currencies. The platform’s main token, LUNA, has seen significant growth in recent years, with a market capitalization of over $20 billion as of March 2023. However, the platform has also been the subject of controversy, with allegations of insider trading and market manipulation.

The case against Terra’s co-founders and colleagues underscores the risks and challenges associated with investing in cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. As the market continues to evolve and attract greater scrutiny from regulators and law enforcement agencies, investors must exercise caution and due diligence to protect their interests.

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The Bank for International Settlements

by Blockchain News

In the days that immediately followed the collapse of the cryptocurrency firms FTX and Terraform Labs, there was an increase in the amount of trading activity that took place on significant exchanges, according to a report that was released by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

According to a report released by the BIS on February 20 and headlined “crypto shocks and retail losses,” after the announcement of the bankruptcy of Terra and FTX, the number of daily active users at some exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance “rose considerably.” This discovery was made in spite of the fact that the prices of Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and a variety of other cryptocurrencies all fell in 2022. The bank provided the appearance that “customers wanted to weather the storm” by shifting their money into stablecoins and other tokens that were likely not looking as gloomy at the time. This was done in order to give the bank the impression that “customers sought to weather the storm.”

In contrast, the BIS reported that whales at the aforementioned exchanges “probably cashed out at the expense of smaller holders” by reducing their BTC stockpiles as retail investors bought cryptocurrency. This occurred as whales reduced their BTC stockpiles as retail investors bought cryptocurrency. This took place when whales sold off their BTC holdings while regular investors purchased bitcoin. The financial institution said that its experts had looked at the number of times bitcoin investing apps were downloaded. Assuming that each user bought $100 worth of bitcoin during the first month and each month thereafter, they found that approximately 75% of users had downloaded an app when the price of bitcoin was higher than $20,000. This was determined by assuming that each user bought $100 worth of bitcoin during the first month.

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Stablegains Sued for Allegedly Misleading Investors

by Blockchain News

The decentralized finance yield platform known as Stablegains is the subject of a legal action that has been brought against it in a court in the state of California on the grounds that it allegedly deceived investors and did not comply with securities legislation. This action was brought against Stablegains on the grounds that it was brought against it on the grounds that it was brought against it on the grounds that it was brought against it on the grounds that it This lawsuit was filed against Stablegains on the grounds that it was filed against it on the grounds that it was filed against it on the grounds that it was filed against it on the grounds that it was filed against it on the grounds that it was filed against it on the grounds that it was filed against it on the grounds that it was filed against it on the grounds

Alec and Artin Ohanian, who are the plaintiffs in this case, brought a complaint to the attention of the United States District Court for the Central District of California on February 18th. The defendants in this case are known as the Ohanians, and the complaint that was submitted alleges that the now-defunct DeFi platform fraudulently transferred all of its customers’ currency to the Anchor Protocol without obtaining either the customers’ knowledge or their consent.

It is possible for investors to receive returns of up to twenty percent on their investments using Terra USD, which is an algorithmic stablecoin created by Terraform Labs. Anchor Protocol was the organization that was in charge of supplying all of these rewards (UST). Because Stablegains was an early supporter and investor in Terraform Labs (UST and LUNA), the company is familiar with both of these organizations. Also an early investor in UST was the company Stablegains. This is due to the fact that Stablegains was the organization that initiated the formation of TFL in the first place. In point of fact, Stablegains, Inc. engaged in misleading advertising practices by presenting UST as an investment that was exempt from the prospect of experiencing any form of loss.

Stablegains provided a gain of 15% for its customers, and the firm kept whatever difference there was between that and the yields that were given by Anchor Protocol. Stablegains was built on the Anchor Protocol blockchain.

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Former Tmon CEO faces arrest for taking bribes to promote Terra Classic

by Blockchain News

After the former CEO of Tmon, a Korean e-commerce platform, was accused of taking billions of won worth of Terra (LUNA), which is now known as Terra Classic (LUNC), in exchange for promoting Terra as a straightforward payment gateway, prosecutors in South Korea have asked for an arrest warrant to be issued for the individual.

According to a report by the Dong-A Ilbo media outlet, the head of the financial and securities joint investigation team at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office requested an arrest warrant for bribery charges to be brought against the former CEO of Tmon, referred to as “Mr. A,” as well as a person referred to as “broker B,” who worked on lobbying in the financial sector in favor of Terra.

According to the allegations, Mr. A was given LUNC tokens by Shin Hyun-Seong, who is also known as Daniel Shin, the co-founder of Terra. Shin urged Mr. A to actively promote Terra as a straightforward method of payment. Following this event, Tmon began promoting LUNC and spreading the word that the token is a reliable investment. The investigators believe that the advertising were responsible for the price growth of the token since they raised the expectations of investors.

It is speculated that the former CEO of Tmon has profited billions of won from the sale of the LUNC tokens that were obtained in return for the marketing. In addition, the investigation emphasized that in spite of warnings from financial regulators, Shin has apparently contributed money to other businesses such as Tmon to promote LUNC as a secure payment mechanism. This was one of the points that was underlined in the research.

On November 14, prosecutors in South Korea made an official request for Shin to assist with the investigation into the collapse of the Terra. The police said that Shin had been in possession of LUNC tokens without the knowledge of the investors and had made illicit transactions totaling more than 105 million dollars prior to the collapse of the firm.

The prosecutors who are in charge of the case have been continually broadening the scope of their investigations and focusing their attention on additional individuals implicated. On the 30th of November in the year 2022, the authorities in South Korea issued an arrest order for Shin, along with three investors in Terra and four engineers responsible for the project.

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South Korean Officials Confirm They Sent Team to Serbia to Find Do Kwon

by Blockchain News

Do Kwon, the controversial inventor of the now-defunct Terra ecosystem, is the subject of an escalated manhunt, with reports indicating that South Korean authorities have confirmed they have dispatched at least two personnel to Serbia in an effort to locate him.

According to a story that was published on the 7th of February by Bloomberg, the prosecutor’s office in Seoul said that the rumors “aren’t fake” about members of its team venturing out to the Balkan state in order to locate Kwon.

It would seem that at least two state officials traveled, one from the office of the prosecutor, and the other from the Ministry of Justice in South Korea.

Chosun Media, a magazine located in South Korea, said on December 11 that they had been notified by a state intelligence officer that Kwon had established a base of operations in Serbia.

There is no extradition treaty in place between South Korea and Serbia at the present time.

According to a recent opinion post written by Minso Kim for the Chosun Media outlet in South Korea, Kwon most likely found Serbia to be an excellent place to hide out as a result of the factors described above.

Kwon, however, has had his passport revoked by South Korea, which may make it more difficult for him to travel in the future.

Since South Korean prosecutors filed an arrest order against Kwon on September 14, he has been suspected of evading capture ever since. Kwon has rejected the allegations made against him throughout the month of October.

The failed entrepreneur, who is now 31 years old, has also been charged of violating regulations governing capital markets.

It is well knowledge that Kwon is a frequent tweeter; yet, he spent over two months without tweeting or retweeting a single message, which has led some people to wonder what the controversial figure has been up to in that time.

However, Kwon recently gave a response to an accusatory tweet that was directed at him, in which he said that he has never taken anybody else’s money and has never participated in any “hidden cashouts.”

Kwon has, up to this point, denied any misconduct.

The de-peg of the algorithmic stablecoin known as TerraClassicUSD (USTC), which caused the collapse of the Terra ecosystem, was one of the contributing factors. Terra Classic (LUNC) was intimately connected to the stablecoin, with the latter also approaching 100% of its value.

There was an estimated loss of value of sixty billion dollars brought on by the environment.

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Mars Hub Launches Independent Cosmos Application Chain

by Blockchain News

Mars Hub, the original Terra lending system, made an announcement on January 31 about the launch of its separate Cosmos application chain. This announcement was accompanied by the distribution of MARS tokens to customers who held Terra Classic during any of the two snapshots.

According to a statement released on January 20, the Mars Hub mainnet will go live with 16 genesis validators. Some of these validators are Block Pane, Chill Validation, Chorus One, Cosmology, CryptoCrew Validators, and ECO Stake.

Following the launch, there will be a possible expansion of 34 more seats for permissionless validators.

During the launch, a total of 50 million MARS tokens will be assigned to genesis validators, and then they will be restored to the community pool after an interval of one month. According to the release, ” This temporary delegation will assist safeguard the network from assault by a rogue validator that could possibly acquire a substantial delegation of MARS quickly after genesis and begin altering transactions on-chain.” This is noted in the statement. The first launch of the mainnet is the third and final stage of a process that initially consisted of a private testnet for developers and other select members of the community, which was then followed by the launch of a public testnet.

In the beginning of February 2023, the Osmosis blockchain will be used to establish the first Mars settlement.

MARS tokens will be made claimable by qualifying addresses through an airdrop that goes live alongside the mainnet. This will unlock a total of 64.4 million tokens for anyone who owned MARS during the two historical snapshots that were taken on Terra Classic.

A blockchain’s recorded state at a specific moment is saved in a file called a snapshot. This file contains all of the address and transaction data that was previously stored on the blockchain.

The distribution of MARS tokens was decided by snapshots obtained before and after the depeg of Terra Class USD (UST). These snapshots were taken at block 7544910 (May 7, 2022, approximately 11 a.m. EST) and block 7816580 (May 28, 2022, approximately 11 a.m. EST).

The tokens will be made accessible through Station, Terra’s new interchain wallet, beginning six months after the introduction of the platform.

Users who possessed the MARS token on Terra Classic will also gain the ability to rule.

The failure of Terra LUNA and its stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) in May 2022 had a widespread effect on the cryptocurrency markets, causing the values of tokens used in decentralised finance (DeFi) projects that were hosted on the Terra protocol, such as Mars Protocol, to plummet.

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Terra Co-Founder Do Kwon Allegedly Hiding In Serbia

by Blockchain News

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In order to send Kwon back to South Korea so that he may face charges there, South Korean officials have made a request for assistance from the government of Serbia.

Do Kwon, the controversial founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, has been on the run since leaving Singapore in September, and the search for him continues throughout the world. Authorities in South Korea now believe that he is in Serbia, but they are not certain.

Chosun Media published a story on December 11 stating that South Korean police followed a tip-off concerning Do Kwon’s whereabouts saying that he is currently in Serbia and have been able to corroborate it. An official was quoted as saying to the site, “Recently, we acquired intelligence that CEO Kwon was in Serbia, and it was proved to be accurate.” [C]ompany CEO Kwon was in Serbia.

In addition to this, the report claims that the Ministry of Finance of South Korea “is in the process of asking assistance from the government of Serbia” as part of the inquiry that is now underway.

Since Terra’s collapse, the police in South Korea have been looking for Do Kwon, but they haven’t had a lot of success in locating him until recently.

It was believed that the 31-year-old relocated to Singapore near the end of April, only a few days before the abrupt collapse of the Terra environment.

Kwon was issued a warrant for his arrest on September 14 by the Financial and Securities Criminal Unit of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office. The order was issued because it is believed that Kwon violated South Korean rules pertaining to the capital markets.

It was not long after that when, on September 26, it was revealed that Interpol had issued a “Red Notice” on Kwon.

However, as of the 11th of December, Do Kwon does not appear to have been added to the Red Notice database that is hosted on Interpol’s website.

On October 6, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in South Korea issued a directive that required Kwon to hand over his passport.

Later on in that month, prosecutors in South Korea verified information that Do Kwon had traveled to Dubai for a probable layover before travelling to another destination, which, as it turns out, could have been Serbia. The reports had been circulating since earlier in that month.

If it turns out that Do Kwon is hiding out in Serbia, then it remains to be seen what, if any, legal threads may be pulled from South Korea in order to try to extradite the founder of Terraform Labs.

Serbia is not one of the 31 countries with whom South Korea has signed a bilateral extradition treaty; nevertheless, South Korea has signed such a pact with 31 other nations.

Kwon has insisted that he is not “on the run” and that he is “making zero attempt to conceal.”

Over the course of the past several months, he has maintained a high level of activity across all of his social media platforms.

The depegging of the algorithmic stablecoin known as Terra USD Classic, also known as USTC (formerly UST), in May was a contributing factor that led to the collapse of the Terra ecosystem. This, in turn, caused a nearly one hundred percent decrease in the value of the sister asset known as Luna Classic, also known as LUNC (formerly LUNA).

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Singapore police allegedly investigate Hodlnaut

by Blockchain News

It has been claimed that the authorities in Singapore are looking into allegations of cheating and fraud involving the cryptocurrency lender Hodlnaut.

There were multiple complaints lodged against the platform between the months of August and November 2022, according to reports that were published in the local media. As a result of these complaints, the commercial affairs department of the police department has opened an investigation into the founders of the exchange.

The bulk of complaints, according to the Singapore authorities, focus on deceptive claims and misinformation about the company’s exposure to a particular digital token.

Investors who were adversely affected by the Hodlnaut problem were also instructed by the police to register a complaint online and present verified evidence of their transaction histories on the site.

The cryptocurrency lending platform showed the first symptoms of difficulty on August 8, when it temporarily halted withdrawals on the site, claiming a liquidity shortage as the reason.

At the time, the platform said that they had no exposure to the algorithmic Terra stablecoin, which has since been discontinued and is now known as TerraUSD Classic (USTC).

On-chain data, however, contradicted the assertions made by crypto lenders and revealed that they possessed at least $150 million dollars worth of USTC.

In October, a court report provided more evidence that the data stored on the chain were accurate.

According to the article, the cryptocurrency lender suffered a loss of around $190 million as a result of Terra’s collapse. Subsequently, in order to conceal their level of risk, they destroyed thousands of papers linked to their investments.

After the collapse of the Terra ecosystem, Hodlnaut was able to keep its exposure to USTC a secret for almost three months. However, it eventually fell victim to the liquidity crunch, which forced the company to seek judicial management, during which a court appointed a new interim CEO for the company.

After a delay of three months, the directors of the company are now the subject of an investigation by the police for failing to keep the users informed.

In August, the cryptocurrency lender said that it was working on a strategy to restructure in the hopes that it would soon be able to resume operations.

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