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Meet The UST Restitution Group: Tracking Do Kwon, Looking For Payback

The UST Restitution Group is on Do Kwon’s tail. A few governments and this civilian group are all out looking for the Terra creator, who insists that he’s not on the run. The Terra/ Luna collapse was one for the books, and that book is still open. We will write many more headlines about Do Kwon, and probably a few about the UST Restitution Group also. What’s done is done, some might say, but others will not rest until the case involves a court. 

In the FT article menacingly titled “Retail investors become vigilantes in hunt for crypto’s most wanted man,” we get to meet the UST Restitution Group. It’s “an association of nearly 4,400 crypto investors trying to track down Kwon, who is wanted in South Korea on charges of financial fraud.” That’s not Do Kwon’s only legal problem, the UST Restitution Group “launched class action lawsuits against Kwon in Singapore and the US, while Interpol has issued a red notice for him. South Korea is expected to revoke his passport on Wednesday.”

UST Restitution Group: Anons Looking For Do Kwon

According to the UST Restitution Group’s website, “Members have suggested that Kwon could be in Dubai, Russia, Azerbaijan, the Seychelles or Mauritius, among other locations.” A pseudonymous user went further and wrote, “Dubai is friendly to crypto, very international (he would not stand out), and has limited extradition treaties in place. It would seem like the best fit for the 3-5 hour timezone shift apparent in the data.”

Reviewing their impressive methods, another pseudonymous user reveals, “I obviously wouldn’t delve into specifics because publishing our methods would render them ineffective. I think we’re doing more than anyone else, though.” This particular UST Restitution Group member “introduced himself as a 31-year-old Ivy League-educated American,” and goes by the name of Antithesis. “His days are numbered. We have people who are very, very close to Do Kwon,” the person said. 

These are very high-level people. They’ve been scorned and they want answers. What will they do to Do Kwon when they find him, though? Another UST Restitution Group member that goes by the name of HKTrader “said he spent a month organising a Singapore class action lawsuit against Kwon and discovered his whereabouts in the country by hiring a private detective.”

Do Kwon is not in Singapore” anymore, though.

UST price chart on Kraken | Source: UST/USD on TradingView.com
How Would They Do It?

The elephant in the room is this: people are not sure how Do Kwon’s trial is going to go. The FT article quotes Seoul crypto expert Choi Hwa-in, “I wonder how effective the legal action against him could be, given the lack of legal ground to punish crypto players. This would just strain the crypto market further, dragging down their value and hurting investors more as a result.”

They also quote an official statement from Terraform Labs themselves, “Recent developments reaffirm that Terraform Labs and its stakeholders remain subjected to a highly politicised and erratic legal environment in South Korea. The facts are on our side, and we look forward to the truth coming to light in the coming months.” Is it possible that Do Kwon and company have it all under control? If so, why is he hidd… oh yeah, because the UST Restitution Group people are literally looking for him.

In a recent interview with journalist Laura Shin, the Terra creator refused to reveal his current location. Apparently, when people knew where Do Kwon was, there was trouble. In the interview, the Terra creator admitted failure and said the cause was the protocol’s “weakness to respond to the cruelty of the markets.” Do Kwon admits to technical and theoretical mistakes, but denies Terra was a scam. 

For her part, Laura Shin went to bat for Do Kwon on this issue. “I’m sorry, people, but this is totally not cool. What do they plan to do when they find him? WTF? People are crazy — Do was right when he said on my show that he can’t reveal his whereabouts. Seriously, don’t do this,” the journalist tweeted.

Featured Image by Amy Z from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

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Laura Shin Asks Terra’s Do Kwon The Tough Questions. What Did We Learn?

This is the Do Kwon interview everyone was waiting for. In the latest episode of Laura Shin’s Unchained Podcast, titled ‘It Was Never Really About Money or 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. And he sweats bullets. 

Laura Shin did her homework, and relentlessly puts forward the questions most Terra investors have. She does this in a non-threatening, extremely professional way. Do Kwon answers all of her questions. Some better than others, but the man does show his face and answers, which is a lot. 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.”

This is the video:

This Do Kwon interview is one for the books, everybody interested in the subject should watch it. Let’s bring out the bullet points and analyze this phenomenal piece of media.

Do Kwon On His Location And “On The Run” Status

  • He claims he doesn’t live in South Korea anymore and he’s not planning to return to face the alleged charges. He plans to appeal, though.
  • Do Kwon hasn’t seen a copy of the arrest warrant.
  • Apparently, cryptocurrencies are securities in South Korea. 
  • His team has been cooperating with South Korean authorities, fulfilling the court requests for different documents.
  • Do Kwon refuses to reveal his current location because of the difficulties it brings to his living situation. He denies he’s on the run. 
  • He denied frozen funds at the KuCoin and OKX exchanges belong to him, Terraform Labs, or the LFG foundation.

The most important news Do Kwon reveals, though, is that the organization is working with a chain analysis firm to produce a paper on their trading activities. “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 chart on Kraken | Source: LUNA/USD on TradingView.com
Terra Was a Failure But It Was Not A Scam

  • 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.”
  • He admits to a lot of technical and theoretical mistakes but denies Terra was a scam. 
  • Do Kwon claims that the Anchor developers/ whistleblowers that came forward denouncing the protocol were only interns. Not a line of their code appears in the final product, and this is apparent in GitHub. 
  • Admits to the SDT premine of $1.4B. This was a second stablecoin that the Terra organization used to maintain the UST peg to 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 admits they were using market operations to maintain the UST peg to the dollar. In fact, he says this was always the idea. The burning and minting of LUNA was not the only procedure that was supposed to maintain the peg.

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.
  • When asked about his participation in Basis Cash, a failed algorithmic stablecoin, Do Kwon distanced himself from the situation. He was just founding the team, but had nothing to do with 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 still believes the world needs to work towards a decentralized future and that we need censorship-resistant money. 

As for his future plans, Do Kwon says he plans to continue building “highly experimental” projects in the crypto space.

Featured Image: Do Kwon and Laura Shin, screenshot from the video interview | Charts by TradingView