18th February 2023 > > Do Kwon.

tl;dr

Do Kwon faces the choice of life imprisonment by the US authorities, or life imprisonment by gangsters.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

BTC remains tantalisingly close to the promised land, helped by a small backing off in rates.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – IOTA staking update

On 21st April 2022, we looked at staking IOTA using Firefly wallet for rewards in the form of SMR (Shimmer) and ASMB (Assembly).

The fifth round of staking has recently got underway, focussed only on ASMB. As of now, Assembly is a project in development, and ASMB coins may end up being worthless.

The same could have been said about SMR for the very first staking round. Happily, I can report that is not the case. I have just sold my free-to-acquire SMR coins in exchange for IOTA. Net result? A 22% kicker to my stash of IOTA.

That’s tasty for a few minutes of work.

If you wish to do the same, there are only two options for selling SMR, one being Bitfinex.

I had never used this exchange before, but I am pleasantly surprised at how efficient and cheap it is to use.

My free IOTA is now off Bitfinex and on Firefly, for yet more staking.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Do Kwon is going down

Do Kwon, co-founder and CEO of TerraForm labs is looking at a hefty jail sentence.

You may recall that last year UST (TerraUSD), an algorithmic stablecoin, and its partner-in-crime, LUNA collapsed almost overnight, dealing one of the many body blows taken by the crypto industry during 2022.

Not long after Kwon disappeared with reports today that he is holed up in Serbia. He’d better stay there.

…

The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) has issued a charge sheet which is damning to say the least.

First up is the claim that Kwon continues to access cryptos that rightly belong to the creditors of TerraForm, which have then been converted into fiat via a Swiss bank account:

“Between June 2022 and the date of this complaint, over $100 million in fiat currency has been withdrawn from that Swiss bank.”

Secondly, TerraForm claimed it was in partnership with payments app Chai to settle transactions. According to the SEC this was a lie:

“Defendants deceptively replicated Chai payments onto the Terraform blockchain, in order to make it appear that they were occurring on the Terraform blockchain, when, in fact, Chai payments were made through traditional means.”

Thirdly, Kwon claimed that following a 60% de-peg to the dollar in May 2021, the algorithmic stablecoin righted itself when in fact he had secretly arranged for an unnamed trading firm to buy UST to help reclaim the peg. In exchange that trading firm was paid $1.2bn.

…

The problem with being on the run is that your life is utter rubbish.

Kwon will be constantly looking over his shoulder. He will have to continue making large payments to those around him to keep them quiet. He cannot travel far unless in heavy disguise. Forget going to the pub for a beer or two.

One day he will be given up to the authorities or murdered by whichever gangsters are currently sheltering him.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.