Do Kwon built a $60 billion cryptocurrency that crashed in days
30 year-old founder of the UST and Luna coins, loses everything in days
The stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) worth $1 collapsed to 9 cents this week
The Luna cryptocurrency also collapsed resulting in massive losses
Many investors lost big after UST and Luna’s collapse
Do Kwon, the quirky 30 year old founder of the UST and Luna coins, has cemented his place as one of crypto’s most well-known individuals for being the biggest loser.
The stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) was meant to stay at $1 but dropped to as low as 13 cents last week and to as low as nine cents this week. Kwon’s cryptocurrency, Luna, also resulted in massive losses for investors after its subsequent collapse.
Do Kwon was born in South Korea in 1991 and attended Stanford University in 2010. In 2018 Do Kwon founded Terraform Labs with Daniel Shin. Terraform started almost immediately seeing interest from investors, the startup raised $150 million in funding from Arrington Capital, Pantera Capital and Galaxy Digital.
In 2018, Terraform Labs raised another $32 million to create a ‘modern financial system on the blockchain.’ Binance, OKX, Huobi Group, and Upbit were among the company’s high-profile sponsors, as were the investment arms of four of the world’s six major cryptocurrency exchanges at the time.
The New York Times reported that between 2018 and 2021 investors put more than $200 million into projects using Luna’s underlying technology. These investors lost enormous amounts of money after UST and Luna’s collapse. Binance reported that CEO Changpeng Zhao said his company’s $3 million investment made back in 2018 rose to about $1.6 billion at Luna’s peak price in April, but was worth less than $3,000 after the crash.
However, one investor did not lose out. That was Pantera Capital who said it earned $170 million from an original $1.7 million investment after selling 80% of its Luna holdings over the past year.
