Do Kwon affirme qu’il aurait pu y avoir un agent infiltré chez TFL, se préparerait à une action en justice

Les vagues de l’implosion de Terra ont peut‑être diminué, mais les entités affectées et les investisseurs continuent d’en ressentir les effets. Le fondateur de l’écosystème Terra, Do Kwon, ne fait pas exception, du moins selon une récente interview avec Zack Guzman du média crypto émergent Coinage. Dans le premier épisode de la série aired on Monday, Kwon reflected on the crash, saying he’s “down infinite” following the collapse of Terra.

The first and second episodes of the interview

Zac Guzman a rencontré Kwon à Singapour, où le principal dirigeant de Terra s’est installé, quelques jours avant la chute de Terra. Kwon a expliqué que ce déménagement était motivé par la sécurité de sa famille, mais il a également été affirmé que cela faisait partie du comportement suspect dont le développeur sud‑coréen est accusé.

En éclaircissant le sujet sensible, Kwon a indiqué que les événements survenus en mai l’ont frappé autant que n’importe quel autre investisseur, ajoutant qu’il avait misé gros et perdu. Cependant, il n’a pas donné de chiffre précis sur sa valeur actuelle, affirmant que les gens ne le croiraient pas de toute façon. Il a seulement assuré qu’il n’a rien tiré de la décimation de l’UST, et qu’il a conservé ses tokens jusqu’au bout, tout comme son épouse.

The Anchor didn’t hold

On peut soutenir que l’échec apparemment unlikely de Terra a commencé avec le lancement d’Anchor en mars 2021. La banque automatisée offrait aux prêteurs un rendement fixe de 20 % annuel, qui, avec le temps, s’est avéré insoutenable. Alors que Terra glissait à 0,99 $ au début de ce fiasco, les déposants d’Anchor sont devenus anxieux que le protocole se dirigeait vers l’insolvabilité et ont cherché à sortir.

Kwon a décrit les taux qu’Anchor proposait aux utilisateurs de Terra comme raisonnables – en interne, il y avait des objectifs de “several thousand percent APR with Anchor in the beginning.” He added that such was the case, given that at the time, DeFi was a budding market space.

À ce stade, il est devenu évident qu’une action était nécessaire, et les milliards de réserves que Kwon avait accumulés pour protéger Terra sont intervenus, le LFG déployant d’abord deploying $1.5 billion on May 8. The funds were increased to $2.5 billion, but even then, traders could foresee the inevitable depletion of the crypto stash Kwon had been dipping. This didn’t inspire much confidence in Terra’s price.

Il a déclaré à Guzman que TFL visait à lever 2 milliards de dollars supplémentaires en proposant aux investisseurs du LUNA à prix réduit. Cependant, la fuite de l’information avant que le plan ne soit mis en œuvre a entraîné une forte vente à découvert des tokens, réduisant considérablement leur valeur, et cette stratégie a échoué lamentablement.

Man on the inside?

‘Who is the man on the inside?’ is the other question that emerges from these Terra events.

While not mentioning any names, Do Kwon suggested that it’s possible there was an insider individual or party. The Terraforms Labs co‑founder said that the insider benefitted heavily from the downfall of UST or, as Coinage puts it, “an anonymous actor, or possibly two, knew exactly how and when to strike against Kwon’s miracle machine.”

This whole situation began with Terraform Labs completing an undisclosed transfer between trading pools. Soon after, untraceable traders took advantage of this brief period of vulnerability, selling nearly $200 million worth of UST. Kwon explained that this huge trade marked the beginning of instability, as more and more people began trading against Curve Protocol’s pools.

Le créateur de Terra a donc affirmé que, puisque seuls les employés de TFL étaient au courant de ce transfert confidentiel, il y avait un agent infiltré dans l’organisation. Il porte la responsabilité d’avoir dû être celui qui aurait dû éliminer “any weaknesses that could have been presented for a short seller to start to take profit.“

The Chai links

Do Kwon n’a pas toujours été loin des projecteurs. Il a frôlé la SEC américaine, sans parler de son comportement sur Twitter, dont il affirme maintenant que les commentaires étaient “cringe.” Far from that, Do Kwon’s involvement with Chai wasn’t the most transparent, as it would come out that the Korean payment app – advertised as a real-world use case of Terra – had ceased its use of UST last year.

Le problème est que Kwon l’a utilisé comme argument de vente pour Terra aussi tard qu’en mars de cette année. Dans l’interview, Kwon affirme ne pas avoir été informé de la rupture de la relation entre les deux, Terra étant devenue si grande qu’il “just wasn’t paying attention to Chai very much.” Much as Kwon maintains deniability, it’s suspicious that he would be uninformed given his relationship with Daniel Shin, who co‑founded Chai with Kwon.

Questions all over

Kwon’s interview comes with concerns over the ability of Zack Guzman to remain neutral while interviewing the UST creator. Guzman had invested in Terra prior to its downfall, and as popular Kwon critic pseudonymous FatManTerra put it, Guzman has always been a Terra shill. There are even more question marks when considering that Coinage’s parent company Trustless Media, had Terraform Labs’ backing as an investor.

But then, on the flip side, some in the community felt that more mainstream media could have likely painted the crypto developer in a worse light than he actually is. Even with the catch, it should have been the road taken as the alternative. Most ended up largely unimpressed with Guzman’s questions, dismissing the interview as it didn’t discuss the pertinent issues.

Taking defensive action

Regarding regulatory action, Kwon said that Korean prosecutors had yet to reach out to him, but he intends to cooperate once that time comes. Recent reports from local news outlets detail that the Terra co‑founder has enlisted legal counsel in South Korea.

Do Kwon is said to have submitted at the local prosecutor’s office appointment documents of an attorney. Following investigations into the Terra ecosystem, the firm’s key employees were banned from leaving the country. Last month, the prosecution team conducted a series of raids on several companies linked with Terra.

Terraform Labs remains under investigation by the US Securities Exchange Commission and South Korean Parliament, a possible class-action lawsuit being a possibility for them.

Do Kwon remained humble in the second clip of the interview published by Coinage on August 19, admitting that he is to blame for risk management errors. He described the crash as “a massive failure in risk assessment” and took the blame for overlooking a scenario where the UST stablecoin failed.

“[Terra] didn’t think that the risks that were being posited to UST were material,” Kwon said regarding the failure to disclose UST’s risks to retail investors fully.

The Terraform Labs CEO noted that UST sellers’ actions were expected and thus not to be blamed for the eventual downfall.

“In every trade, there’s collateral damage […] If the peg broke, you can’t blame the trader that took a market opportunity.”  

For a man who openly proclaims his love for crypto & Web3 and with an ambition to continue building for a long time, maybe Kwon isn’t ready to disappear into the background just yet.