BlockBeats reported on August 13 that South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon admitted to two counts of fraud in federal court in New York on Tuesday. The 33-year-old co-founder of Terraform Labs developed the TerraUSD and LUNA tokens, which collapsed in 2022, causing approximately $40 billion in losses.
At a hearing presided over by federal judge Paul Engelmaier in the Southern District of New York, Do Kwon pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and wire fraud. In January of this year, he had pleaded not guilty to nine charges related to securities fraud, wire fraud, commodity fraud, and money laundering.
During the hearing, Do Kwon apologized: "I concealed the truth about the trading company's intervention to restore the peg and made false statements. My actions were wrong."
Although the statutory maximum sentence is 25 years, the prosecution agreed to recommend no more than 12 years in prison if he pleads guilty and shows remorse. The presiding judge will make a sentencing decision on December 11. This case is one of the major cases during the cryptocurrency winter of 2022, when several digital asset companies went bankrupt.
