Do Kwon Net Worth: Crypto Founder Who Was Known for Calling Critics “Poor” Loses Billions in Market Crash

Kwon Do-Hyung, who goes by the name “Do Kwon” more often, is a South Korean cryptocurrency developer who co-founded Singapore-based Terraform Labs and serves as its CEO. Terraform Labs make the Terra blockchain.
It has the stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and the network token Terra (LUNA). In May 2022, TerraUSD and Luna went bankrupt, wiping out almost $45 billion worth of market capitalization. Due to the size and controversy of Terra’s fall, journalists, especially in his home country of South Korea, have compared Kwon to Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos.
Key Facts
- Kwon started Terra to use blockchain technology to make a better way to pay for things.
- Its price-stable cryptocurrency, which it calls “stablecoin,” brought in 40 million users when it first came out in January 2018.
- Terra has raised $32 million from crypto giants like Binance, Arrington XRP, and Polychain Capital to build a blockchain-based payment system.
- It has also put together a group of business partners, including Ticketmaster, a Korean ticketing giant, and Yanolja, a travel service.
Early Career
Kwon finished high school at Daewon Foreign Language High School and then went to Stanford University to study computer science. He graduated in June 2015 with a degree in computer science. He worked as an engineer for three months at both Apple and Microsoft. Then, in September 2015, he went back to South Korea to start a business.
Career
Former Terra employees say that Kwon also started a failed stablecoin project called Basis Cash, based on another failed stablecoin project called Basis (formerly Basecoin). The Basis was made by Nader Al-Naji, who got a lot of money from Venture capitalists to start the company.
Al-Naji shut down Basis because of worries from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and gave his investors their money back. But Basis Cash came into being as a way to get around SEC rules.
Terra
Kwon is one of the people who made Terra, a payment blockchain. TerraUSD (UST), a so-called algorithmic stablecoin meant to keep a 1:1 peg with the U.S. dollar, was one of Terra’s most essential parts. UST stablecoins were not backed by U.S. dollars.
Instead, they were made to keep their value through a complicated model called “burn and mint equilibrium.” This method uses a two-token system, with one token (UST) meant to stay stable and the other (LUNA) meant to handle volatility. Investors who put UST into “Anchor Protocol” returned about 19 percent from Terra’s reserves.
Licensing and Regulatory Issues
The company behind UST, Terraform Labs, is based in Singapore, but The Straits Times says it did not apply for a license under the Payment Services Act. It is also not a “notified entity,” which means that the Monetary Authority of Singapore has not given it a temporary exemption from having a license.
According to documents filed by Kwon at the Supreme Court of South Korea’s Registry Office, Kwon filed to dissolve the company’s Korean entity on April 30, 2022 and was permitted on May 4, 2022, just days before the UST and Luna crashed.
In 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sent a subpoena to Terraform Labs and Kwon. The warrant was about Terraform Labs’ “Mirror Protocol,” which made and sold financial derivatives that almost “mirrored” real stocks.
Kwon replied that he wouldn’t do what they wanted and would sue the SEC instead. Even though Kwon tried to fight and stop the SEC from looking into him and Terraform Labs, a U.S. court hearing in Manhattan in February 2022 ruled in favor of the SEC’s right to keep looking into him and Terraform Labs.
Collapse
After UST broke its link to the U.S. dollar on May 9, 2022, the tokens became news. Over the next week, the price of UST dropped below 25 cents, and the cost of Luna fell to “almost zero,” from a high of $119.51, it’s an all-time high. Over a week, the market cap lost almost $45 billion because of the crash.
Terraform Labs stopped the Terra blockchain on May 13 because the prices of UST and Luna were going down. Even though the company used its BTC reserves from the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) to try to stabilize UST and Luna, the 1:1 peg of UST to USD did not happen. As of May 16, 2022, blockchain analysts say that it is still primarily unknown how the BTC reserves of LFG will be used.
Kwon came up with a plan to restart the Terra blockchain by making 1 billion tokens and giving them to everyone involved. Based on a snapshot taken before the UST de-pegging, 40 percent of the tokens would go to Luna holders, and the other 40 percent would go to UST holders.
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Do Kwon Net Worth
AD Terra’s CEO and co-founder are Do Kwon. As of the year 2022, he is worth around a billion dollars. When he started the telecommunications company Anyfi in 2016, Kwon became an entrepreneur for the first time. Any is a peer-to-peer communication system based on a mesh network. From 2007 to 2017, he was in charge of the company as its CEO.
In 2018, Do Kwon and Daniel Shin started a blockchain technology company called Terraform Labs. The group’s primary goal is to make a decentralized cryptocurrency whose prices are easy to predict. On the other hand, Terra Proof-of-Stake (PoS) is a public blockchain made by Terraform Labs and is based on the Cosmos Software Development Kit (SDK).
In addition to the blockchain industry, Kwon is involved with well-known cryptocurrency projects like Anchor Protocol and Mirror Protocol. The company also makes the LUNA stable coin, which doesn’t lose value over time. The company uses this coiny as a native asset on the Terra Blockchain.
Forbes chose Kwon as a rising star in finance and venture capital for 2019 and put him on their “30 Under 30” list.
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Do Kwon Korea?
Kwon Do-Hyung, who is better known as Do Kwon, is a South Korean developer who works on cryptocurrency. He co-founded Singapore-based Terraform Labs and is the CEO of the company. Terraform Labs make the Terra blockchain. It has the stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and the network token Terra (LUNA).
What Caused Terra Crash?
The crash of Terra’s LUNA token, which caused the collapse of the entire crypto market, has brought back the debate about decentralization. When a few people controlled enough of the market, the algorithm between the UST stablecoin and its sister token, LUNA, fell apart.
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Who Is the Founder of Luna?
The owner of Terra is Do Kwon (LUNA). Do Kwon, a South Korean, is known as the owner of Terra, a popular stablecoin and cryptocurrency (LUNA). As the founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, he has to deal with Terra’s dropping a lot since it was worth $1.