Do Kwon Arrested, Montenegrin Officials Say

The former founder was arrested at the airport for “falsified documents”

March 23, 2023 10:44 am

Artwork by Axel Rangel modified by Blockworks

Do Kwon, founder of the now collapsed Terraform Labs, has been arrested in Montenegro, local officials say.

Montenegrin police have detained the disgraced entrepreneur at the Podgorica airport, the country’s minister of interior, Filip Adzic, tweeted.

“The former ‘cryptocurrency king,’ who is behind losses of more than $ 40 billion, was detained at the Podgorica airport with falsified documents,” Adzic wrote.

The tweet has since been retweeted by the country’s prime minister, Dritan Abazovic. Local news site Vijesti has also confirmed the reports.

Following his arrest, the price of LUNA immediately dipped by 8.2%. It is now trading at $1.33, according to information on CoinGecko.

Montenegrin officials directed Blockworks to Mr. Adzic’s Twitter account for further information.

The depeg of the TerraUSD stablecoin resulted in a more than $40 billion loss by crypto investors and institutions.

Unlike stablecoins such as USDC, USDT and DAI, TerraUSD was not backed by reserves and maintained its peg to the dollar through an algorithm, which ultimately failed.

Do Kwon was charged by the SEC for “orchestrating” cryptocurrency securities fraud earlier this year.

He is also sought after by government officials in South Korea, who have issued a warrant for his arrest. Kwon is under investigation by Singaporean officials as well.

Updated March 23, 2023 at 11:26 am ET: Added additional context throughout.
Updated March 23, 2023 at 1:32 pm ET: Added response from Montenegro government official.

Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the On the Margin newsletter.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Newsletter

Blockworks Daily

Upcoming Events

Permissionless III Hackathon

Salt Lake City, UT

MON - TUES, OCT. 7 - 8, 2024

Blockworks and Bankless in collaboration with buidlbox are excited to announce the second installment of the Permissionless Hackathon – taking place October 7-8 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We’ve partnered with buidlbox to bring together the brightest minds in crypto for […]

learn more

Permissionless III

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Permissionless is a conference for founders, application developers, and users. Come meet the next generation of people building and using crypto.

learn more

recent research

Research

Why Solana Mobile Should 100x Their Phone Production

Solana Mobile is a highly ambitious foray into the mobile consumer hardware market, seeking to open up a crypto-native distribution channel for mobile-first applications. The market for Solana Mobile devices has demonstrated a phenomenon whereby external market actors (e.g. Solana-native projects) continuously underwrite subsidies to Mobile consumers. The value of these subsidies, coming in the form of airdrops, trial programs, and exclusive NFT mints, have consistently covered the cost of the phone and generated positive returns for consumers. Given this trend in subsidies, the unit economics in the market for Mobile devices, and the initial growth rate and trajectory of sales, it should be expected that Solana mobile can clear 1M to 10M units over the coming years. As more devices circulate amongst users, Solana Mobile presents a promising venue for the emergence of killer-applications uniquely enabled by this mobile-first, crypto-native distribution channel.

by Luke Leasure