An American court sentenced South Korean crypto tycoon Do Kwon to 15 years in prison on Thursday after convicting him of fraud and causing investors to lose $40 billion, according to US media. The verdict was handed down in a New York court, where Kwon had pleaded guilty in August last year following an international manhunt that spanned Asia and Europe and ended in his arrest. Kwon, 34, was behind two cryptocurrencies that previously boomed. Through his company Terraform Labs, he launched the 'TerraUSD' cryptocurrency, which was marketed as a 'stablecoin'—a cryptocurrency pegged to stable assets like the US dollar to mitigate sharp value fluctuations. Kwon successfully marketed it as the currency of the future, attracting billions in investments and gaining widespread global attention. Kwon also received wide acclaim in South Korean media, which dubbed him a 'genius,' while thousands of individual investors flocked to pour money into his company. In 2019, Kwon was named to the Forbes '30 Under 30' list in Asia. However, despite billions of dollars invested, the TerraUSD cryptocurrency collapsed, followed by Luna in May 2022. Experts said Kwon had set up a sophisticated pyramid scheme that cost many investors their life savings. Kwon had left South Korea before his cryptocurrencies crashed, spending months on the run before being arrested in March 2023 at Podgorica Airport in Montenegro. Last year, Montenegro extradited him to the United States.
