City Seoul Financial News

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South Korean police are investigating allegations that a domestic bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) crypto mining “pool” is a scam.

Despite facing the music over the Terra fiasco, Do Kwon seems to be quite optimistic about the future. The CEO of Terraform Labs recently expressed “great confidence” in rebuilding the empire that crashed last month. Notwithstanding the crypto-market’s recent bearish trajectory.

Terra (LUNA) employees are reportedly unable to leave South Korea as the country's prosecutors imposed a departure ban on key developers of the project.

One can hardly name a document more long-hoped-for as the crypto bill, co-sponsored by United States Senators Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, was for the crypto community. And, it’s finally here. Last week, Lummis and Gillibrand introduced a 69-page bill in the U.S. Senate. What’s inside? The projects of study on the environmental impact of digital assets and advisory committee on innovation, a tax structure, a mandate for analysis of the use of digital assets in retirement savings and much more.

SEOUL—A weeklong trucker strike in South Korea over fuel costs and wages is tying up supply chains in one of Asia’s export powerhouses.

Terra blockchain launched a new digital token to compensate investors burned by one of crypto’s biggest busts, the blows have kept coming. Luna 2.0, as the coin is known, emerged out of the ashes of crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon’s ecosystem, which collapsed after the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin at the center of it dropped from its dollar peg in early May. But any hopes of a quick recovery for investors who lost billions of dollars in the crash are fading, with the token losing more than half of its value in the past week alone, based on data from CoinGecko. Scrutiny from securities regulators in the US and police in South Korea is adding to the woes. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether the marketing of TerraUSD violated federal investor-protection regulations, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. In Seoul, police are examining allegations that staff of Luna backer Terraform Labs embezzled Bitcoin holdings amassed to help defend TerraUSD’s peg to the dollar.

Failed Terra blockchain relaunches into a new token, but the blows have kept coming

South Korea’s OK Financial Group – one of the nation’s biggest moneylenders and savings banking services providers – has unveiled plans to create a cryptoasset. The company will become one of a growing cohort of firms that are hoping to launch tokens, and this appears to indicate that the days of the nationwide ban on initial coin offerings (ICOs) may be numbered.

The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation into the Terra crash. The Terra explosion is one of the biggest busts in the crypto history. The probe also investigates the marketing of the native TerraUSD token.

Terraform Labs, the parent company behind the collapsed Terra ecosystem, is currently under multiple investigations from the South Korean authorities.

South Korea, a nation known for its strict crypto regulatory stance, is betting big on the metaverse. The government will invest over 223.7 billion won ($177.1 million) directly in various metaverse projects.

South Korean media outlets say they have unearthed evidence that a blockchain firm based in Seoul has a close relationship with Terraform Labs – and may have been developing for the Terra network under the radar. But the plot may already have thickened – with allegations that the National Tax Service (NTS) found evidence of a “suspicious flow of transactions” between the firm and Terraform Labs when it investigated the firms last year.

The South Korean government continues to investigate Terraform Labs, the firm behind the Terra Network as well as Luna (LUNC) and Terra USD (UST) tokens, by reportedly summoning subpoenas to employees.

South Korean police could reportedly take over from the “Yeouido Grim Reaper” financial crimes investigation unit in the probe of Terraform Labs after “embezzlement” charges were leveled at an unnamed employee.

Crypto exchanges in South Korea have been issued notices from police requesting the sequestering of funds related to the Luna Foundation Guard. 

SEOUL—President Biden began his three-day trip to South Korea with a visit to a Samsung Electronics Co. semiconductor plant, underscoring the technology ties between the countries as the U.S. seeks to strengthen supply chains and reboot its own manufacturing amid competition with China.

The dramatic story of the Terra (LUNA) crash — referred to by some as the Lehman Brothers of crypto — has taken yet another remarkable turn as legal documents reveal the liquidation of two South Korean offices and the dissolution of the Terraform Labs Korea corporation in the days preceding the dual currency collapse.

The challenges ahead for Terra’s co-founders are notably more than just reviving the protocol after UST and LUNA coins collapsed last week.

Legal troubles are mounting for the co-founder of failed Terra crypto project Do Kwon as the South Korean government revives the dormant "Grim Reapers of Yeoui-do" to investigate Terra’s fall.

Another headache appears to be incoming for Do Kwon (full name Kwon Do-hyeong) and his company Terraform Labs – with investors in South Korea ready to wage a legal battle against the CEO.