Do Kwon, the South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur and co-founder of Terraform Labs, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a series of criminal fraud charges in a Manhattan federal court. This comes just days after his extradition from Montenegro, where he had been detained for over a year. His case centers around the collapse of TerraUSD and Luna (LUNC), which collectively lost an estimated $40 billion in 2022. Ordered To Remain In Custody Following Court Appearance According to a Reuters report, federal prosecutors unsealed a nine-count indictment accusing Kwon of multiple offenses, including securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Related Reading: If Solana Reclaims $210 ‘New Highs Are Next’ – Price Analysis Dressed in an olive green long-sleeved shirt and black sweatpants, Kwon appeared in court alongside his lawyer, Andrew Chesley, who indicated that they would not seek bail at this time. Following Kwon’s plea, US Magistrate Judge Robert Lehrburger reportedly ordered him to remain in custody. Do Kwon left the courtroom with a copy of the 79-page indictment, and he is scheduled to return for another hearing on January 8. The Fallout From Do Kwon Alleged Fraud And Market Manipulation In June, Kwon reached a civil settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), agreeing to pay an $80 million fine and accept a ban from participating in cryptocurrency transactions. This settlement was part of a broader $4.55 billion resolution related to alleged misconduct in the management of Terraform Labs. The indictment details how Kwon allegedly misled investors about the stability of TerraUSD, a stablecoin designed to maintain a value of $1. In May 2021, when the stablecoin’s value began to falter, Kwon reportedly claimed that a computer algorithm known as “Terra Protocol” had successfully restored its peg. In reality, prosecutors allege that Do Kwon orchestrated a scheme involving a high-frequency trading firm to secretly purchase millions of dollars of TerraUSD to artificially inflate its price. Related Reading: Weekly Chart Shows That Dogecoin Price Is Primed To Cross $11 In 2025, Here’s How This reportedly drove both retail and institutional investors to buy Terraform products, significantly boosting the value of Luna, another token linked to TerraUSD, to as high as $50 billion by the spring of 2022. The indictment states, “Much of this growth followed Kwon’s brazen deceptions about Terraform and its technology.” However, the situation took a turn for the worse in May 2022 when TerraUSD’s value began to decline again. The trading firm that had previously propped it up warned Kwon that maintaining its value “wasn’t so simple this time.” The subsequent crash of both TerraUSD and Luna sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency market, leading to substantial losses for investors and contributing to a broader downturn that affected other digital assets, including Bitcoin (BTC). While prosecutors have not disclosed the identity of the trading firm involved, SEC lawyers previously indicated that Jump Trading had played a role in supporting TerraUSD during its peak in May 2021. Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
Crypto analyst Javon Marks has again provided a bullish narrative for Terra Classic USD (USTC). This time, the analyst predicted that the ‘stablecoin’ could rise by over 360% and revealed when this parabolic run would happen. When USTC Will Rise By Over 360% In a chart shared in an X (formerly Twitter) post, Marks suggested that USTC could begin its 360% parabolic run sometime this month and peak in September. The analyst explained that USTC is still holding a Bullish Divergence and multiple sets of higher lows, indicating that the token is still in a bullish environment, with a 360% recovery run on the horizon. Related Reading: Celsius Takes Legal Action Against Tether In $2.4 Bitcoin Collateral Controversy Marks added that with prices still broken out, this run could lead to USTC rising to $0.08097 and that it ” may take place at unimaginable speeds.” As part of his analysis, Marks showed that USTC’s relative strength index (RSI) is still hitting higher lows despite the token’s price decline, suggesting that bears may be losing their control with a bullish reversal on the horizon. Marks had noted in an earlier analysis how USTC showed “major recovery strength” as it recorded a price move of over 54% after confirming a key Bullish Divergence. He affirmed that a higher price rally was still in play as his $0.08097 price target remained unchanged. USTC is a decentralized and algorithmic stablecoin on the Terra blockchain. It lost its dollar peg during the infamous LUNA crash in May 2022 and dropped to an all-time low of $0.006218 in June 2022. However, since then, the stablecoin has experienced some sort of revival thanks to the USTC burns carried out by the Terra Classic community. Data from LUNC Metrics shows that 2.32 billion USTCs have been burned since May 2022, although the stablecoin still has a circulating supply of almost 5.6 billion USTC. Thanks to this, USTC is up by over 150% from its all-time low. However, it remains to be seen if the stablecoin will ever regain its dollar peg. Bullish Prediction For LUNC Marks also recently provided a bullish prediction for Terra Classic (LUNC). He stated that LUNC is “starting to look absolutely primed to go” and that the crypto token could enjoy a minimum 5.7x price gain. In another X post, he explained that LUNC’s price continues to diverge bullishly based on the On-Balance-Volume (OBV) indicator. Related Reading: Bitcoin Death Cross Threatens To Trigger Crash If Price Does Not Hold $62,000 He remarked that this could be a sign that the bears are losing power and that the bulls are getting ready to dominate the market again. He added that the price target for LUNC as it makes this parabolic run is $0.00042986. Marks had previously claimed that LUNC could rise to as high as $0.00139122 in this bull run. Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume has executed another large-scale Terra Classic (LUNC) burn, continuing its supporting role for the Terra Classic ecosystem. Despite the substantial supply reduction, the price of LUNC and its daily trading volume have been falling significantly. Binance Burns LUNC Tokens On May 23, Binance initiated another LUNC burn […]
The Terra community isn’t relenting in its efforts to revive the LUNC and USTC tokens and take them back to their old glory days. This time, the community has proposed a proposal to ensure that the Luna Classic’s (LUNC) circulating supply data is well documented. Terra Community Proposes All Allnodes As An Official Organization The […]