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Do Kwon was born September 6, 1991, in Seoul, South Korea. He studied computer science at Stanford University and received his bachelor's degree in 2015.
After graduating from Stanford, Kwon worked with Apple and Microsoft briefly as an engineer. In 2016, he founded the telecommunication company Anyfi, which is a peer-to-peer communications solution using mesh network technology. He was the CEO of the company until 2017.
In 2018, Kwon, along with Daniel Shin, founded Terraform Labs, a now-dissolved blockchain technology company that aimed to create a decentralized price-stable cryptocurrency. Terraform Labs developed the Terra proof-of-stake (PoS), a public blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK.
The company also minted the noninflationary stable coin LUNA, which was used as a native asset on the Terra Blockchain. Terraform was overseeing the development of the e-commerce platform CHAI, which utilized Terra stablecoin. The company was dissolved in May 2022, just days before its associated token crashed.
Kwon started facing legal issues in May 2022, after the collapse of the cryptocurrency that was developed by his company Terraform Labs, TerraUSD. In September 2022, an arrest warrant was issued for him in South Korea, and he was added to Interpol's Red List, which calls for law enforcement to locate and possibly detain him.
Investors also filed lawsuits against him, including a class action lawsuit that was filed in Singapore. This lawsuit was filed by 359 investors of Terraform Labs, who were led to believe that Terraform's tokens were stable when they were indeed not.
In March 2023, Kwon was arrested in Montenegro while trying to use forged documents to board an international flight. On the same day, US prosecutors announced eight charges against Kwon, including securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud, and conspiracy.