CRYPTO NEWSWIRE; Do Kwon, Crypto Entrepreneur Who Caused 2022 Crash, Is Sentenced to Prison... His Sentencing Shakes Crypto Market.... Terraform Labs Founder Gets 15-Year Sentence....
CNN: Crypto mogul Do Kwon sentenced to 15 years in prison for $40 billion stablecoin fraud
NEW YORK (Associated Press) — Onetime cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison after a $40 billion crash revealed his crypto ecosystem to be a fraud.
CRYPTO FRAUD: Victims said the 34-year-old financial technology whiz weaponized their trust to convince them that the investment — secretly propped up by cash infusions — was safe.
Kwon, a Stanford graduate known by some as “the cryptocurrency king,” apologized after listening as victims — one in court and others by telephone — described the scam’s toll: wiping out nest eggs, depleting charities and wrecking lives.
One told the judge in a letter that he contemplated suicide after his father lost his retirement money in the scheme.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said at a daylong sentencing hearing in Manhattan federal court that the government’s recommendation of 12 years in prison was “unreasonably lenient” and that the defense’s request for five years was “utterly unthinkable and wildly unreasonable.”
Kwon faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
“Your offense caused real people to lose $40 billion in real money, not some paper loss,” Engelmayer told Kwon, who sat at the defense table in a yellow jail suit.
The judge called it “a fraud on an epic, generational scale” and said Kwon had an “almost mystical hold” on investors and caused incalculable “human wreckage.”
It was more than the combined losses in FTX and OneCoin cases
Kwon pleaded guilty in August to fraud charges stemming from the collapse of Terraform Labs, the Singapore-based firm he co-founded in 2018.
The loss exceeded the combined losses from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood’s frauds, prosecutors said.
Engelmayer estimated there may have been a million victims.
Terraform Labs had touted its TerraUSD as a reliable “stablecoin” — a kind of currency typically pegged to stable assets to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices.
But prosecutors say it was an illusion backed by outside cash infusions that came crumbling down after it plunged far below its $1 peg.
The crash devastated investors in TerraUSD and its floating sister currency, Luna, triggering “a cascade of crises that swept through cryptocurrency markets.”
Kwon tried to rebuild Terraform Labs in Singapore before fleeing to the Balkans on a false passport, prosecutors said.
He’s been locked up since his March 2023 arrest in Montenegro. He was credited for 17 months he spent in jail there before being extradited to the U.S.
Kwon agreed to forfeit over $19 million as part of his plea deal.
His lawyers argued his conduct stemmed not from greed, but hubris and desperation.
Engelmayer rejected his request to serve his sentence in his native South Korea, where he also faces prosecution and where his wife and 4-year-old daughter live.
“I have spent almost every waking moment of the last few years thinking of what I could have done different and what I can do now to make things right,” Kwon told Engelmayer.
Hearing from victims, he said, was “harrowing and reminded me again of the great losses that I have caused"....
cnn.com/2025/12/11/business/…
#DoKwon,
#DoKwonSentenced,
#DoKwonPrison,
#TerraformLabs,
#TerraLuna,
#TerraUSD,
#USTCollapse,
#LunaCrash,
#CryptoCrash2022,
#CryptoFraud,
#StablecoinFraud,
#CryptoScam,
#40BillionLoss,
#CryptoKing,
#Crypto,
#PaulEngelmayer,
#ManhattanCourt,
#FederalSentence,
#Prison,
#CryptoMogul,
#TerraformFounder,
#DoKwonGuilty,
#WireFraud,
#SecuritiesFraud,
#CryptoVictims,
#InvestorLosses,
#CryptoWinter,
#TerraLunaCrash,
#USTDepeg,
#AlgorithmicStablecoin,
#CryptoNews,
#BreakingCrypto,
#CryptoJustice,
#FraudSentence,
#EpicFraud,
#GenerationalFraud,
#HumanWreckage,
#CryptoRegulation,
#SECCharges,
#DOJProsecution,
#MontenegroArrest,
#ExtraditionUS,
#SouthKoreaCharges,
#CryptoAccountability,
#StablecoinRisks,
#LunaHolders,
#USTHolders,
#CryptoMarketShake,
#BankmanFriedComparison,
#FTXCollapse