South Korean cryptocurrency tycoon Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday over fraud linked to his company’s failure, which wiped out $40 billion of investors’ money and shook global crypto markets, US media reported.<\/p>\n
Kwon, who nurtured two digital currencies central to the bankruptcy, was sentenced at the New York court where he pleaded guilty in August after an international manhunt spanning Asia and Europe.<\/p>\n
He still faces fraud charges in his native South Korea.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old’s Terraform Labs created a cryptocurrency called TerraUSD that was marketed as a “stablecoin,” a token that is pegged to stable assets such as the US dollar to prevent drastic fluctuations.<\/p>\n
Kwon successfully marketed them as the next big thing in crypto, attracting billions in investments and global hype.<\/p>\n
He was flooded with praise in South Korean media, which described him as a “genius” as thousands of private investors lined up to pour cash into his company.<\/p>\n
And in 2019, Kwon featured in Forbes’ 30 under 30 Asia list.<\/p>\n
But despite billions in investments, TerraUSD and its sister token Luna went into a death spiral in May 2022.<\/p>\n
Experts said Kwon had set up a glorified pyramid scheme, in which many investors lost their life savings.<\/p>\n
He left South Korea before the crash and spent months on the run.<\/p>\n
The crypto tycoon was arrested in March 2023 at the airport in Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, while preparing to board a flight to Dubai, in possession of a fake Costa Rican passport.<\/p>\n
He was extradited last year from Montenegro to the United States.<\/p>\n
rh-bjt\/jgc<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Korean cryptocurrency tycoon Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday over fraud linked to his company’s failure, which wiped out $40 billion of investors’ money and shook global crypto markets, US media reported. Kwon, who nurtured two digital currencies central to the bankruptcy, was sentenced at the New York court where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[306,1643,549,144],"class_list":["post-20680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-economy","tag-crime","tag-crypto","tag-skorea","tag-us-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20683,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20680\/revisions\/20683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}