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☆ Jump Trading Did Secret Deal to Prop Up TerraUSD Stablecoin, SEC Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Alexander Osipovich | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Jump Trading hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing in connection with TerraUSD or the coin’s May 2022 collapse. Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg NewsU.S. high-speed trading giant Jump Trading entered a secret deal to prop up the TerraUSD cryptocurrency a year before the coin’s collapse, new court filings show, highlighting the ties between Chicago-based Jump and disgraced crypto mogul Do Kwon . The Securities and Exchange Commission posted the court filings late Friday as part of its fraud lawsuit against Mr. Kwon and his company, Terraform Labs. The filings confirm that Jump was the unnamed U.S. trading firm in the SEC’s lawsuit that made some $1 billion in profit through its dealings with Terraform Labs, according to the SEC.

☆ Montenegro court releases crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon on bail
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BELGRADE, May 12 (Reuters) - A court in Montenegro agreed on Friday to release Do Kwon, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur charged in the U.S. with a multibillion-dollar fraud, on bail of 400,000 euros ($440,320), pending a trial on local charges. Following his arrest in Montenegro in March, the U.S. District Court in Manhattan made public an eight-count indictment against Do Kwon for securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud and conspiracy. He was detained with Han Chang-joon, Terraform Labs' former finance officer, who will also be released on bail of 400,000 euros. "The court ... found that the possibility of losing the posted bail of 400,000 euros each, works sufficiently to dissuade them from any desire to flee," the statement said. Montenegrin police arrested Do Kwon and Chang-joon at Podgorica airport as they tried to board a flight to Dubai.

☆ South Korean Prosecutor Calls for Crypto Entrepreneur Do Kwon to Face Charges in Home Country
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Jiyoung Sohn | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon has been detained in Montenegro since March. Photo: stringer/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesSEOUL—The South Korean prosecutor leading the investigation into crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon said he believes extraditing him to his native country would be the best way to bring justice to victims of the TerraUSD cryptocurrency crash, which wiped out some $40 billion from digital currency markets. South Korea is vying with U.S. prosecutors to extradite Mr. Kwon from Montenegro, where he has been detained since March, and charge him in connection with the failed TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies. Mr. Kwon, who is a South Korean citizen, was the co-founder of Terraform Labs, the company behind the two failed cryptocurrencies.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has a message for Coinbase and other crypto exchanges: The rules are clear, and they must be obeyed. In a video posted on Twitter on Thursday, Gensler said that crypto exchanges must treat cryptocurrencies like securities and stop acting as if the regulations are ambiguous. "If you're a securities exchange, clearinghouse, broker, or dealer, you must come into compliance, register with us, and deal with conflicts of interest and disclose important information. Since January, the SEC has taken action against crypto exchanges Bittrex & Gemini, crypto lender Genesis, and a number of individual actors accused of manipulating crypto assets, including crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun and disgraced Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon. "Intermediaries for investment contracts, whether they're exchanges, brokers, dealers, clearinghouses, they need to comply with the securities laws and register with the Securities and Exchange Commission."

☆ Coinbase sues SEC after months of silence from federal regulator
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Rohan Goswami | In Rohangoswamicnbc | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Crypto exchange Coinbase filed suit against the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, asking that the regulator be forced to publicly share its answer to a months-old petition on whether it would allow the crypto industry to be regulated using existing SEC frameworks. The SEC did not offer a specific public response to Coinbase's petition, but in recent months has aggressively ramped up enforcement actions and warnings against crypto exchanges, including Coinbase. "From the SEC's public statements and enforcement activity in the crypto industry, it seems like the SEC has already made up its mind to deny our petition. So the action Coinbase filed today simply asks the court to ask the SEC to share its decision," Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal said in a blog post. "Yet Coinbase and other crypto companies are facing potential regulatory enforcement actions from the SEC, even though we have not been told how the SEC believes the law applies to our business."

☆ Do Kwon, Jailed Crypto CEO, Rejects SEC Fraud Allegations
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Alexander Osipovich | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Do Kwon was arrested in Montenegro last month. Photo: boris pejovic/ShutterstockLawyers for crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon asked a judge to throw out a U.S. regulator’s lawsuit accusing him of fraud in connection with last year’s $40 billion collapse of the TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies. In a Friday evening court filing, Mr. Kwon’s lawyers said the Securities and Exchange Commission exceeded its authority when it sued him and his company, Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd., and failed to prove that they had defrauded U.S. investors.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler was testifying in front of the House Financial Services Committee for the first time since Republicans took over the House of Representatives in January. Gensler, who has helmed the SEC since April 2021, underscored the agency's rulemaking as "grounded in legal authorities granted by Congress." The SEC also levied record penalties in the last fiscal year and Republican lawmakers seized on the agency's nearly 50 enforcement actions against crypto firms, saying the agency was regulating by enforcement. Gensler maintained most cryptocurrencies are securities and crypto firms must comply with securities laws. Progressive lawmakers and investor advocates have praised the SEC and pushed Congress to give the agency more resources.

Bankman-Fried is expected to be arraigned on the new indictment on Thursday before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan federal court. The new indictment said Bankman-Fried ordered the $40 million cryptocurrency payment to a private wallet from Alameda's main trading account, to persuade Chinese government authorities to unfreeze Alameda accounts with more than $1 billion of cryptocurrency. Prosecutors said the Alameda accounts had been frozen as part of an investigation into an unnamed Alameda counterparty, and Bankman-Fried's prior efforts to lobby Chinese officials to lift the freeze were unsuccessful. They also said Bankman-Fried around November 2021 authorized a transfer of tens of millions of dollars of additional cryptocurrency to "complete" the bribe. Concerns that Bankman-Fried might tamper with witnesses prompted Kaplan to threaten jailing him unless tighter restrictions could be worked out.

☆ S.Korea, US seeking extradition of crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon -Montenegro
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

PODGORICA, March 29 (Reuters) - South Korea and the U.S. are seeking the extradition of Do Kwon, an international fugitive accused of a multibillion-dollar fraud, and another suspect arrested in Montenegro last week, the Montenegrin Justice Minister Marko Kovac said on Wednesday. Do Kwon, a South Korean national, is a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and former CEO of South Korea-based Terraform Labs, the company behind the stablecoin TerraUSD that collapsed in May 2022 and roiled cryptocurrency markets. A U.S. indictment announced last week charged Do Kwon, who co-founded Terraform Labs and developed the TerraUSD and Luna currencies, with two counts each of securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud and conspiracy. South Korean authorities issued an arrest warrant for him last September. Kovac said the South Korean and U.S. extradition requests also called for the handover of the computers.

☆ US prosecutors charge crypto Terra founder Do Kwon with fraud following his Montenegro arrest
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Zinya Salfiti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

US fraud prosecutors charged Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon hours after his arrest in Montenegro. Kwon created two cryptocurrencies TerraUSD and its sister affiliate Luna that lost $40B last year. Prosecutors at the US attorney's office in New York have slapped an eight-count indictment against Kwon, including securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud and conspiracy, according to a Reuters report. The criminal case comes after the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Kwon and Terraform Labs with alleged fraud last month. The collapse of his Singapore-based Terraform Labs and that of the TerraUSD stablecoin sparked a broader crypto sell-off and wreaked havoc in the digital asset sector.

☆ Suspected Crypto Fugitive Arrested in Montenegro
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Alexander Osipovich | Bojan Pancevski | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Do Kwon is co-founder and chief executive of Terraform Labs. A person suspected of being Do Kwon, creator of the failed TerraUSD stablecoin, has been arrested in Montenegro after months of being in hiding, the interior minister of the Balkan country said Thursday. Montenegro Interior Minister Filip Adzic said on Twitter that the suspect was detained in the airport of the country’s capital of Podgorica with false documents, and that the local authorities were awaiting official confirmation of his identity.

☆ Montenegro police arrest suspected former CEO of Terraform labs - interior minister
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

PODGORICA/SEOUL, March 23 (Reuters) - Police in Montenegro have detained a person thought to be Do Kwon, an international fugitive accused of defrauding investors in a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency scheme, the country's interior minister said on Thursday. "The person is suspected of being one of the most wanted fugitives, South Korean national Do Kwon, a co-founder and CEO of the Singapore-based Terraform Labs," Filip Adzic, the Montenegrin interior minister wrote on Twitter. loadingSouth Korean police said a suspect thought to be Do Kwon and another person thought to be an individual named Han Chang-joon had been arrested in Montenegro. In February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Kwon and Terraform Labs in Manhattan federal court, accusing them of defrauding investors in what the regulator deemed a multibillion-dollar scheme. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating the 2022 collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin and had questioned former team members of Terraform Labs, which was behind the stablecoin.

☆ A person suspected to be crypto developer Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro months after the collapse of TerraUSD
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Carla Mozée | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

A person suspected of being Do Kwon, creator of the now-collapsed TerraUSD stablecoin, has been arrested in Montenegro, a country official said Thursday. The country's interior minister said the suspect was arrested at the airport with falsified documents. Authorities have been looking for months for Kwon since the failure of his Singapore-based Terraform Labs ecosystem and the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin wreaked havoc in the crypto market. Police in Montenegro detained a person suspected to be Do Kwon at the Podgorica airport, Montenegro Interior Minister Filip Adzic said on Twitter. South Korea, where Kwon is from, issued an arrest warrant for Kwon in September for for alleged capital markets law violations.

Seoul/Atlanta CNN —Interpol says a man arrested in Montenegro is Kwon Do-hyeong, also known as Do Kwon, the disgraced founder of a collapsed crypto company who is wanted in South Korea and the United States on fraud and other charges. Kwon, a South Korean national, founded the blockchain platform behind the TerraUSD stablecoin and its sister coin Luna. Kwon’s identity was confirmed through a fingerprint match, Interpol’s national central bureau in Seoul told CNN on Friday. Seoul prosecutors told CNN in December that the crypto entrepreneur was believed to be in Serbia, where he was in hiding after leaving Singapore via Dubai. Kwon has been charged with fraud and breaches of South Korea’s capital markets law.

Lindsay Lohan attends/performs during a photocall for "Speed The Plow" at Playhouse Theatre on September 30, 2014 in London, England. The Securities and Exchange Commission has unveiled fraud and unregistered securities charges against crypto founder and Grenadian diplomat Justin Sun, alongside separate violations against the celebrity backers of his Tronix and BitTorrent crypto assets, which included Jake Paul, Lindsay Lohan and Soulja Boy. The unregistered offer and sale charges, on the other hand, are similar to charges the SEC has unveiled against other crypto offerings and exchanges, including Genesis, Gemini and Do Kwon's Terraform Labs. “This case demonstrates again the high risk investors face when crypto asset securities are offered and sold without proper disclosure,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Tron and his backers' alleged behavior was part of an "age-old playbook to mislead and harm investors," SEC enforcement chief Gurbir Grewal said in a statement.

☆ U.S. Justice Department probes collapse of TerraUSD stablecoin - WSJ
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

March 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is investigating last year’s collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Southern District of New York (SDNY) have questioned former team members of the company behind the stablecoin, the report said. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office for the SDNY declined to comment. Last month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Terraform founder Do Kwon with defrauding investors in what the regulator deemed a multibillion-dollar scheme. Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Luc Cohen and Ananya Mariam Rajesh; Editing by Maju SamuelOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Justice Department Probes Collapse of Do Kwon’s TerraUSD Stablecoin
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Alexander Osipovich | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Justice Department is investigating last year’s collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin, adding the risk of U.S. criminal charges to the pressure on its creator, South Korean crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon, people familiar with the matter said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Southern District of New York have questioned former team members of Mr. Kwon’s company, Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd., in recent weeks and sought to interview others, the people said. The FBI and SDNY are both parts of the Justice Department, and SDNY often takes the lead in high-profile prosecutions of financial crimes.

☆ The SEC has accused fugitive Terraform founder Do Kwon of multibillion-dollar crypto fraud linked to TerraUSD's collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Zahra Tayeb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The SEC has charged fugitive crypto boss Do Kwon and his company Terraform Labs with alleged fraud. The suit is linked to the collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD which led to a $60 billion wipeout last year. Terraform was "simply a fraud propped up by a so-called algorithmic 'stablecoin'," the SEC alleges. The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused them of misleading US investors about the stability of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD, or UST, which was meant to be pegged to the US dollar. At the same time, the SEC is also charging Terraform and Kwon over the sale of unregistered securities, the markets regulator said.

☆ Former Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce settles with SEC over crypto violations
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The action against Pierce involves his public statements about EthereumMax, or EMAX, the same crypto security product that the SEC charged influencer Kim Kardashian with unlawfully touting. Pierce is also barred from promoting any crypto asset securities for three years, the SEC said. Pierce's social media support for EthereumMax also involved allegedly misleading the public about his EMAX holdings, according to the SEC. Pierce allegedly shared misleading screenshots of his EMAX holdings and profits, the SEC said, without disclosing that his personal holdings were actually far lower. A federal class action lawsuit naming Pierce, Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and other EthereumMax boosters was dismissed in December.

☆ Fugitive Stablecoin Founder Do Kwon Accused of Securities Fraud in U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Dave Michaels | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Do Kwon is the developer behind the failed cryptocurrencies TerraUSD and Luna. WASHINGTON—The founder of failed cryptocurrencies TerraUSD and Luna and his company misled U.S. investors who purchased billions of dollars of the digital assets, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday. The SEC filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Do Kwon and Singapore-based Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd. in Manhattan federal court, accusing them of misrepresenting the risk of TerraUSD and misleading investors about how Luna was used in South Korea.

☆ U.S. SEC charges Terra founder Do Kwon with fraud
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Hannah Lang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Kwon founded blockchain platform Terraform Labs and was the primary developer of two cryptocurrencies whose demise roiled crypto markets around the world last year. TerraUSD, an algorithmic stablecoin supposed to maintain a 1:1 peg to the U.S. dollar, derived its value through another paired token called Luna. Both tokens lost nearly all their value when TerraUSD, also known as UST, slipped below its 1:1 dollar peg in May 2022. Prior to its collapse on May 9, TerraUSD had a market cap of more than $18.5 billion and was the tenth-largest cryptocurrency. Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and David GregorioOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ SEC charges Do Kwon, Terraform with fraud in connection with Terra collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Do Kwon, co-founder and chief executive officer of Terraform Labs, insists that he is not on the run from South Korean authorities. Terraform Labs, the company that Kwon founded, is behind the collapsed cryptocurrencies terraUSD and luna, which combined were worth $60 billion before they crashed. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Terraform Labs and its CEO, Do Kwon, with fraud, alleging that they orchestrated a multibillion dollar "crypto asset securities fraud," the SEC said Thursday. The SEC alleges that Kwon marketed those assets, including those mAsset swaps and Terra, as profit-bearing securities, "repeatedly claiming" the tokens would increase in value. Kwon is wanted in South Korea for his involvement in the collapse of TerraUSD.

☆ US SEC charges Terra founder Do Kwon with fraud
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Kwon founded blockchain platform Terraform Labs and was the primary developer of two cryptocurrencies whose demise roiled crypto markets around the world last year. The SEC filing did not say where Kwon was living. According to the SEC’s complaint, Terraform Labs and Kwon misled investors about the stability of UST, and claimed that the firm’s crypto tokens would increase in value. Terraform Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Globally, investors in TerraUSD and Luna lost an estimated $42 billion, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

☆ Singapore’s 15 fastest-growing jobs for 2023, according to LinkedIn
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-22 | by ( Goh Chiew Tong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Jobs that help companies digitize and grow amid economic volatility are on the rise in Singapore, according to LinkedIn. Its latest Jobs on the Rise data revealed spikes in hiring for growth specialists, technical jobs and health-care professionals in Asia — among other jobs expected to expand hiring well into 2023. Researchers from LinkedIn examined jobs from January 2018 to July 2022 to calculate the growth rate for each job title in a specific country. Here's the full list of Singapore's jobs on the rise in 2023, according to LinkedIn:1. Machine learning engineerMost common skills: TensorFlow, Deep Learning, PyTorch Most common industries: Technology and media, manufacturing, financial services Median years of prior experience: 2.6 Remote job availability: 4.5%12.

☆ Execs from top firms like Morgan Stanley and Vanguard share tips for how to cut costs when moving to the public cloud
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Carter Johnson | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

When Vanguard first made a push into the public cloud, Michael Carr, the firm's chief technology officer, knew realizing savings was a key part of the move. Collaboration is keyAs with most technology applications, there's a human behavior element to cloud cost savings. At Capital One, it took years to build a culture of collaboration between technology and finance teams within the bank's centralized cloud expense management division, Johnston said. Before, the finance team would send the tech team an aggregate bill at the end of each month and "that was kind of the end of the story," Johnston said. Speaking the same language has instilled a greater sense of empathy across different teams, like finance, technology, business, and others.

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