‘Crypto king’ Do Kwon gets 15 years in prison for misleading investors who lost billions
The South Korean founder of Terraform Labs had previously pleaded guilty to fraud charges stemming from a US$40 billion stablecoin crash
One-time cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in prison after a US$40 billion crash revealed his crypto ecosystem to be a fraud.
Victims said the 34-year-old financial technology whiz weaponised 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”, apologised 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.
Engelmayer said the government’s recommendation of a 12-year prison sentence was “unreasonably lenient”, and the defence’s request for five years was “utterly unthinkable and wildly unreasonable”. Kwon faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
“Your offence caused real people to lose US$40 billion in real money, not some paper loss,” Engelmayer told Kwon. 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”.