Crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon gets 15-year prison sentence

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Disgraced crypto tycoon Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to fraud in connection with the $40 billion crash of his TerraUSD and Luna coins in 2022. Kwon, who had asked for a sentence of five years, pleaded guilty to two criminal counts in August, including one count of wire fraud and one on conspiracy to commit wire, securities and commodities fraud.

In exchange for Kwon’s plea, federal prosecutors agreed to not seek a prison sentence of more than 12 years, and dropped seven other counts against him. At the start of Thursday’s hearing, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said he was concerned whether it was fair and appropriate to proceed with the sentencing given the late arrival of some 315 victim letters.

Kwon said he hasn’t had the chance to physically read the letters, though he and his lawyers decided to proceed with the sentencing. Kwon’s sentencing is a curtain call for the brash entrepreneur who was among the loudest and most influential cheerleaders for digital currencies during the 2021-22 crypto boom. Born in South Korea and educated at Stanford University, Kwon founded the crypto firm Terraform Labs in 2018.

He promoted TerraUSD, a so-called algorithmic stablecoin, as the future of money, and was notorious for deriding his critics in social-media posts—until the collapse of his coins triggered a daisy chain of crises that eventually ushered in what the industry calls its crypto winter. At its peak in the spring of 2022, the total market value of all cryptocurrencies associated with Terraform exceeded $50 billion, prosecutors said. Their subsequent failures hurt hundreds of thousands of investors worldwide, some of whom lost their life