Do Kwon has come up with a new coin. But the new LUNA appears to be following the old story. Amidst the broader wobbling market, LUNA has been trading near its all-time lows. While Kwon is in the middle of multiple active lawsuits and investigations from the US and South Korea, some still believe that all the negative press around him isn’t fair.
Do Kwon Isn’t Going Away
Terraform Labs chief Do Kwon may not have many ardent followers at this point, but there’s still a handful of well-wishing associates. One such is Ronald AngSiy, vice president at decentralized finance (DeFi) company Intellabridge Technology.
While speaking with WSJ , AngSiy said,
“I feel really bad for Do because of the way his name is being dragged through the mud right now. On Twitter, he can come off as a megalomaniac, but he’s not like that in person.”
For the uninitiated, AngSiy previously interacted with Kwon in business meetings and even served as an ambassador for Terra. He claims to have lost over $1 million of his personal investments in the crash, but that has not deterred the VP from thinking any less highly of the Terra founder.
The crypto community, however, remains divided. To some, Kwon, a 30-year-old graduate of Stanford University, is seen as a complete trash talker who delights in taunting his critics as “poor.” Those in his inner circle and the virtual cult-like followers believe that he is a “misunderstood genius.”
The founder has made several outlandish claims and trumpeted Terra’s mission to create a decentralized system that may ultimately run itself. He even threatened competitors and confessed his joy in watching his rivals fail. Thanks to his ego and fewer sound arguments, he managed to swoon a cult that called themselves “Lunatics” with pride.
Experts have warned that the experiment was risky even by the standards of the crypto industry. But it wasn’t enough. The naysayers grew louder only after the death spiral. To be honest, it makes a great case study for crypto hype for the outsiders.
He has definitely toned it down on Twitter since the fateful day, briefly taking his account private . He now occasionally posts developments on Terra 2.0, the supposed excitement among creators and developers to build something new on top of it, and tweets clarifying that he lost significant money too. Kwon says he doesn’t care about the money much.
But who is left holding the bag when it all came crashing down? The investors – both big and small. Several class-action lawsuits have been filed accusing Terraform Labs and Do Kwon of fraud and the sale of unregistered securities, among other allegations. But the company deems these lawsuits as meritless.
To Believe or Not to Believe
The community members are now rebuilding the obliterated blockchain ecosystem. While investigations into the failings of Terra may unravel quite interesting aspects, many prominent figures in the space believe there are clear signs of why investors should not fall for another project associated with Kwon. Cory Klippsten, chief executive of cryptocurrency firm Swan Bitcoin, for one, said,
“It was just really obvious from seeing how this guy tweeted, and how he spoke on camera, and how he carried himself that he was a fraudster.”