**Crypto Founder Do Kwon Sentenced to 15 Years for ‘Epic’ $40B Stablecoin Fraud**
A New York federal judge has sentenced former crypto entrepreneur **Do Kwon** to 15 years in prison for what prosecutors called an “epic” multibillion-dollar fraud tied to the collapse of the TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies.
Kwon, a South Korean national and co-founder of Singapore-based **Terraform Labs**, was behind the two digital tokens that crashed in 2022, wiping out an estimated **$40 billion** in value and shaking global crypto markets. He admitted to misleading investors about TerraUSD, a so-called stablecoin designed to maintain a 1:1 peg with the US dollar.
US District Judge **Paul A. Engelmayer** said Kwon’s deception caused extraordinary financial harm, noting that investors had trusted him with their savings. “This was a fraud on an epic, generational scale,” he said during Thursday’s sentencing in Manhattan. “In the history of federal prosecutions, there are few frauds that have caused as much harm as you have.”
Kwon, who pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud, expressed remorse, telling the court: “I have spent almost every waking moment of the last few years thinking of what I could have done differently and what I can do now to make things right.”
Prosecutors detailed how Kwon misled investors when TerraUSD slipped below its $1 peg in May 2021. While he publicly claimed an algorithm had automatically restored the stablecoin’s value, court filings revealed he had secretly arranged for a trading firm to purchase millions of dollars’ worth of TerraUSD to prop up its price.
Kwon’s sentencing adds to a growing list of crypto executives facing criminal charges in the US following the sector’s dramatic crash in 2022, which triggered the downfall of several major digital-asset companies.
