You’ve been waiting for the Do Kwon interview. In the latest episode of Laura Shin’s Unchained Podcast, titled ‘This was not about money, fame, or success.’, the Terra creator faces serious scrutiny. Do Kwon denounces media misinformation, denies several serious charges and gives a play-by-play explanation of the organization’s movements during the crash. He is a bulletproof man.
Laura Shin was thorough in her research and persistently answered the many questions Terra investors had. It is a professional and non-threatening way that she does it. Do Kwon answered all her questions. While some answers are better than others, Do Kwon does answer all of her questions. Compassionately, Laura Shin also gives Do Kwon a second opportunity to say sorry to Terra’s affected investors and their families. He would’ve come across much worse if she hadn’t offered that second chance.
The episode’s intro says:
“Do Kwon, cofounder of Terraform Labs, discusses the charges against him, gives a message to Terra victims, answers allegations about potential fraud and non-transparent business practices.”
Here’s the video:
Let’s bring out the bullet points and analyze this phenomenal piece of media. Do Kwon’s interview with him is one to remember. Everyone who is interested in this subject needs to see it.
Do Kwon On His Location And “On The Run” Status
- He claims he doesn’t live in South Korea anymore and is not planning to return to face the alleged charges. However, he plans to appeal.
- Do Kwon hasn’t seen a copy of the arrest warrant.
- South Korea appears to view cryptocurrencies as securities.
- His team worked with South Korean authorities to fulfill court demands for documents.
- Do Kwon won’t reveal where he is at the moment because it could cause him difficulties in his daily life. He denies he’s on the run.
- Terraform Labs and the LFG foundation denied that he had frozen the KuCoin or OKX funds.
Do Kwon also reveals that the company is currently working with a chain analyst firm to compile a paper on trading activity. “They should be publishing a report shortly, which I think is going to provide a lot more clarity,” he said. Do Kwon promised the report in “the next couple of weeks.”
LUNA price graph on Kraken | Source: LUNA/USD on TradingView.com
Terra failed, but was not a fraud
- Do Kwon claims that his online persona was an alter ego and confesses that he got carried away with the “sh*tposting.”
- Terra’s failure was caused by the protocol’s “weakness to respond to the cruelty of the markets.”
- Terra is a fraud, he admits.
- Do Kwon asserts that all the Anchor developers/ whistleblowers who came forward to denounce the protocol were interns. GitHub makes it clear that not a single line of their code is in the final product.
- Accepts the SDT premine amounting to $1.4B. The Terra organisation used this stablecoin to keep the UST peg at the dollar. This stablecoin wasn’t even mentioned in the Terra whitepaper. According to Do Kwon, this was because they hadn’t conceived SDT when they wrote it. He claims Terra’s is an “academic whitepaper” and wasn’t supposed to cover all of the technologies’ use cases.
- Do Kwon admitted that they used market operations to keep the UST pegged to the dollar. This was actually the plan all along. It wasn’t just the creation of LUNA that was meant to keep the peg alive.
Do Kwon, and the Other Admissions
- Apparently, Terra and Chai haven’t been working together for a long time.
- When asked about faking Chai’s numbers and interactions registered in the Terra blockchain, Do Kwon said that the numbers came from Chai. According to him, they were probably “distancing themselves” from the Terra situation but still using the blockchain.
- Do Kwon reacted negatively to questions about Basis Cash, an unsuccessful algorithmic stablecoin. While he was the founding team of the company, he had absolutely nothing to do the actual project. “Basis Cash is not something that I designed or operated. It’s something that I encouraged,” Do Kwon said.
- When asked about if he was planning to compensate Terra investors from his own pocket, Do Kwon said, “my personal funds are not significant enough to make a difference.”
- He believes that the world must work toward a decentralized future, and that money should be censorship resistant.
As for his future plans, Do Kwon says he plans to continue building “highly experimental” projects in the crypto space.
Featured Image: Do Kwon & Laura Shin. A screenshot taken from the video interview by Charts By TradingView| Charts by TradingView