Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, appeared before a U.S. magistrate in the first legal hearing since his extradition to the United States. In front of Magistrate Robert Lehrburger, in the Southern District of New York, Kwon pleaded not guilty to multiple charges related to the collapse of his project, Terra, in 2022. The charges include securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and commodities fraud, which have severely impacted the cryptocurrency ecosystem and its investors.
The collapse of Terra, which included the fall of the stablecoin UST and its token LUNA, caused multimillion-dollar losses and affected thousands of people, triggering a series of international investigations. Kwon's extradition to the U.S. was a complex process that involved deliberations among Montenegrin authorities about whether he should be sent to the United States or South Korea, his home country.
