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Do kwon sent $80M a month to secret wallets?
- padseeker 4y ago"I don't debate the poor - I'm busy ripping off my investors"
- Jasonrams 4y ago
- arcticbull 4y agoNice little allowance.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cmckn 4y agoEntirely lacking details; but I don’t think anyone would be surprised at this point that shady things were happening at Terra Labs.
- tluyben2 4y agoAnd are happening. Luna2 got a people pouring money and it is gone now almost. It is not over.
- kmonsen 4y agoThere must be more to it, I can't believe people are believing in it. They must be in on the scam in some way.
- lilyball 4y agoPeople want to believe, because if they don't then it means they were wrong to believe in the first place. Faith is irrational.
- jpeanuts 4y agoOr: there are a lot of people who think that they're in on a scam, but in fact are lower down the pyramid than they are told. That explanation requires no faith, and can also explain participation of entirely rational actors.
- moistly 4y agoSunk cost fallacy applies to faith as much as it does to money.
- jjtheblunt 4y agoperhaps they're blinded by denial?
- itsmemattchung 4y agoSadly, people have blind spots. I personally know someone who just like 40-50k, someone who was THE biggest advocate of Terra/Luna. Post crash? Reinvesting in Luna2.0
- sytelus 4y agoFool me once, fool me twice... wow! It is this time when I think about all the people who cry about SEC regulations and argue that people are intelligent and need not be protected from scammers like this.
- radicaldreamer 4y agoThey’re part of a cult. Prophecies not happening actually strengthen their belief in the cult.
- mike_d 4y agoI know tons of people who made double digit millions in bitcoin. They put 10k to 50k early money in most projects they come across. Maybe 10% come out with a positive ROI of >1000%. Crypto is no more of a scam than venture capital.
- namdnay 4y agoThe fundamental difference being that from time to time, companies funded by VC actually build a product that is sold to the non-investing public. If VC were like crypto, they’d only be funding startups whose objective would be to raise more money from other VCs
- tluyben2 4y ago> If VC were like crypto, they’d only be funding startups whose objective would be to raise more money from other VCs And this is not often the case? I mean for crypto it's basically only that, but there are quite a bunch of VC funded companies that just live on raise followed by raise. They won't say that out loud, but nor will crypto many crypto companies.
- JoelMcCracken 4y agoI'm sure there are people saying "look, NOW is the time to get in on luna2! We learned lessons from 1, and 2 will be perfect"
- kmonsen 4y agoOf all the scams to fall for luna2 seems a very obvious one.
- polytely 4y agoits like those doomsday cults that double down after the promised rapture doesn't arrive
- heretogetout 4y agoIt's easy, they know someone that knows someone that made a few hundred grand in crypto a while back, and they want a piece. The thinking doesn't go much beyond this.
- Alex3917 4y ago> The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been investigating Kwon Do-Hyung for violating the Securities Act, claiming that the blockchain service that made it possible to buy US equities with Terra was a violation of the Securities Act. FWIW this is the important part, not the fact that he was allegedly sending himself money.
- wmf 4y agoSpeak for yourself. Encouraging people to buy into your system while you're personally cashing out is ethically dubious.
- RandomThrow321 4y agoSure, but this has wider implications beyond a single example.
- beardedetim 4y agoEthically dubious, sure. But legally?
- mistrial9 4y ago
- rank0 4y agoShe's leaving Meta
- CobrastanJorji 4y agoThose were sold gradually over a decade-long period, the majority of which were before 2015.
- makoz 4y agoAren't all sales at that level disclosed publicly, well in advanced/regulated?
- Alex3917 4y ago
- svachalek 4y agoI'm picturing him showing up in a bright red Ferrari like Richard Pryor in Superman 3.
- cecida 4y agoA crypto grifter getting rich and leaving a load of retail "investors" holding the bag when it all collapses? This surely hasn't happened before?
- eudoxus 4y agoThe beautiful irony would be if he was cashing out and holding all these "laundered" funds in Luna/UST. I guess time will tell.
- cecida 4y agoI doubt it. HODL is a mantra used by crypto grifters to ensure they can liquidate into filthy dollars or euros without having bagholders panic and depress the price.
- moralestapia 4y agoSo you're telling me Do Kwon was a scammer?! Wow, no one would've thought of that! What's even more absurd is that in a couple years from now it will do a similar thing again, and people will give him its money ... again.
- GVIrish 4y agoIt's stunning that people bought into Luna 2.0 after the first Luna token imploded. It didn't take a few years, it was what, a few weeks later?
- bombadilo 4y agoCan we leave these painfully overused sarcastic comments to reddit please? This adds nothing to the discussion. I've been seeing these types of comments more frequently on HN. What's happened to the moderation?
- lokar 4y agoI agree it's not great. But imo it's an understandable and inevitable reaction to the constant pro-crypto fanboy comments. Both sides are mostly noise.
- Victerius 4y agoWhy is everyone on this planet so greedy?
- delabay 4y agoIn this life you can be selfish, stupid or a burden. Selfishness creates the most value in the world.
- toolz 4y agoIt's truly amazing how many people spend their entire lives pushing for higher salaries than they need and seeing the immense benefits of competing in the economy, but somehow fall back to the conclusion that greed (the only thing that has improved their life) is terrible. The car you drive, the central AC you enjoy, the delivery food you'll eat this week? All of that is extreme luxury and unnecessary by someone else's standards.
- tehlike 4y agoPushing for high salaries is doing work and getting paid for it. Grift? not so much. There's difference. There's no shame in working super hard and making lots of money. but sadly, not all hard work is equal.
- toolz 4y agoI agree there's certainly a difference, but what you might consider grifting someone else might consider quite legitimate. e.g. I think essential oils and energy crystals are grifting, but many people find a lot of value in those things and I would never want to suggest I know better what they should spend their own money. They probably would see the money I spend on things like tech toys equally as stupid (and they might not be wrong LOL).
- tehlike 4y agoIs ponzi a legitimate thing? Early backers definitely think so! I guess this is what I'm alluding to. Crypto is fun, but most things are obscure ponzis
- ppeetteerr 4y agoI’m still waiting for crypto to revolutionize the world. So far, it’s been nothing but pollution, speculation, theft, and crime.
- anm89 4y agoCrypto on the other hand, isn't waiting on very much from you.
- jdoliner 4y agoMillions of people in third world countries have escaped hyperinflation by storing their wealth in bitcoin. The revolution has already happened. You see it as crime though, because revolutions are always criminal while they're happening.
- ShamelessC 4y agoMillions!? Citation needed.
- croes 4y agoSource?
- mantenpanther 4y ago"Nothing" is not true. Many in failed states are using it.
- jefozabuss 4y agoThe only surprising thing around this situation is that Jake Paul didn't promote it right before the crash.
- jerf 4y agoI wish I could access amazon.com circa 2040 (or equivalent site) and buy the definite book about the history of the cryptocurrency world. I bet it'll have some real doozies in it.
- dqpb 4y agoHere, let me save you some time. When a new technology comes along, a lot of people want to invest in it. That’s a big opportunity for scammers. People who are unable to discern scam from not scam get scammed.
- yunohn 4y ago> People who are unable to discern scam from not scam get scammed. So it’s just these people that have ever lost money in crypto? Honestly, every crypto-successful person I know has ALSO invested in shitcoins and scams.
- skc 4y agoTo the surprise of literally no one with a brain. I'm in awe of how much collective brain power has going to waste on crypto. Will we ever get these years back?
- devoutsalsa 4y agoI'd rather waste my brainpower on crypto than advertising or in-app purchases.
- bilbo0s 4y agoIf you spend your brainpower on crypto, cheer up! You're likely one of the contributors to the allocation of brainpower on advertising in-app purchases of crypto as well!
- puranjay 4y agoif every single crypto dApp was erased from the world overnight, absolutely nothing about how you live your life would change. That's how much impact crypto has had on the world in 15 years.
- netr0ute 4y agoIf the iPhone was never released in 2007, Android would have picked up the smartphone slack.
- puranjay 4y agoif the iPhone was released in 2007 but in 2022, you couldn't use it to make calls, browse the web, and chat with friends. Instead, it could only run a bunch of Candy Crush clones, but with real money. Would you call that a successful product?
- heretogetout 4y agoAnd given how bad Android is with its plurality or majority market share, how much worse would it be without iPhone competition? I wonder how few years Android devices would be supported if iPhones didn't set the bar so high.
- yelnatz 4y agoCan someone explain why this is money laundering? Trying to understand what laws he's breaking.
- Etheryte 4y agoFrom Wiki [0]: > In US law, money laundering is the practice of engaging in financial transactions to conceal the identity, source, or destination of illegally gained money. Secretly transferring money out of your company to locations where you may at an opportune time be able to personally withdraw it seems to match the description very well. To put another way, even if you own 100% of your company, your company's money is not your personal money. Trying to make it so while concealing it and avoiding taxes etc is a crime. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering
- _1tan 4y agoThe correct phrasing then should be embezzlement.
- singlow 4y agoI agree the base crime here appears to be embezzlement. However the actions taken to conceal the embezzlement may be considered laundering. Most embezzlements do involve hiding the money movements, so I would only expect it to be laundering if he mixed the funds with legitimate funds in order to conceal their source. I don't see that in the article.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoIt all falls under wire fraud. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/wire_fraud https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/wire_fraud
- zionic 4y agoIf money is speech, this law seems fairly obviously unconstitutional.
- codegladiator 4y agoMaybe if there was transparent ledger which everyone can check online. Maybe if there was some sort of distributed consensus to stop this.
- arcticbull 4y agoYou know the ledger doesn't track transactions at centralized exchanges (where the overwhelming majority of transactions actually happen), right? It also doesn't track offline transactions where you transfer the wallet keys instead of the coins on chain.
- eudoxus 4y agoThis is where projects should be more strict about operating (in some sense) as a DAO, with transparent voting and resourec/fund allocation based on proposals. Even if its a "centralized" single organization like Terra Labs or the Luna Foundation. Seems silly to advocate for the future of finance and the trustless verifiable web, when the projects building on it still use traditional corporate mechanics and the veil to go along with it. EDIT: DOA/DAO typo*
- jiveturkey 4y agoYou know that was exactly the point the parent was making?
- dropnerd 4y agoradical idea- cex balances should be public and linked to deposit and withdrawal addresses
- sergiotapia 4y agoI've yet to see _anything_ valuable come out of crypto. Nothing but scams and rich pricks scamming dumb retail investors. What a shame, I really through it would change the world. Show me one thing positive crypto has done, please.
- gman83 4y agoIf the Supreme Court upholds the Jarkesy v. SEC ruling, would that completely void the SEC's ability to do anything about these kinds of scams?
- HideousKojima 4y agoNo, it just means they'd have to go through the courts instead of their own hearings/panels.
- firebaze 4y agoCrypto-coin stuff seems to cause one-dimensional good-vs-bad discussions. Nothing to learn from.
- mdanger007 4y agoWhat's the fine line of Do Qwon's story, ripping off investors to the tune of 100s of millions? Is he a modern Rodion Raskolnikov?
- firebaze 4y agoDid that surprise you?
- rvz 4y agoThe only thing to learn here is that on HN, most of them like predictable outrage on their own bias if it goes on top of HN. The majority of comments are dismissive and uninformative and then you have some of them accepting that regulations are coming whilst also disagreeing with absolutist statements. They are in the minority of comments here. If you post a crypto exit scam in the multi-millions, just watch the reactions go wild. Post anything about Stripe, Moneygram, Checkout.com, Shopify, Namecheap, Porkbun, etc and other companies using cryptocurrencies, then you will get zero reactions or it never reaches the top of HN. The absolutist arguments that both the critics and maximalists keep making is quite cheap really and I'm only taking their arguments with a grain of salt and looking at the crypto industry with close inspection but not with sweeping dismissals or being ignorant of the entire industry as a whole with hasty generalisations or confirmation bias. Otherwise, the whole thing would have been totally (and successfully) banned and collapsed shorter than expected. Co-existence is what is going to happen really.
- goatcode 4y agoIs there a better-written article on what's going on out there, somewhere?
- hansoolo 4y agoYeah, really.
- rasz 4y agoSounds modest compared to the scale of the scam.
- braingenious 4y agoThat’s an enormous amount of money! I’ve really gotta figure out where I can make friends with these crypto whales so I can be like “Hey would you mind hooking me up with a fraction of a percent of what you pay yourself in one month?”
- doctor_eval 4y agoYeah - sorry, it won’t work if you say it like that. They want returns! So you gotta offer them. “Invest in my coin and you will get 24% interest per month forever!” Apparently they are smart enough to accumulate masses of money, but not smart enough to understand that you can’t (mathematically) take returns like that indefinitely.
- braingenious 4y agoAlas, my conscience prevents me from starting a scam — no matter how much I feel like I want to sometimes. The best I can do is politely asking for things!
- bufferoverflow 4y agoDo you mean a job? Otherwise, why would they just give you money for free?
- braingenious 4y agoNo, I would not want a crypto job. I mean literally just asking for free stuff. People can be surprisingly generous and the only way to find out is by asking. My rules for Asking For Shit are threefold: 1. Ask nicely — don’t be presumptive or manipulative. 2. Don’t be grumpy about a “No” — Don’t be a dick. 3. Maintain a habit of generosity such that other people feel comfortable Asking You For Shit — Be nice.
- runnr_az 4y agoThe amount of money involved in this stuff is still (STILL!) shocking to me. Where does all that cash come from?
- bozhark 4y agoretail
- nikanj 4y agoPeople who see the crypto ads during superbowl and think they’d enjoy being rich
- postalrat 4y agosuckers
- marton78 4y agoQuantitative easing, via a few detours.
- LegitShady 4y agofools and what used to be their money
- aeyes 4y agoAs you saw, there was no cash when people tried to actually cash out...
- anm89 4y agoThe world is a big place. .05% of the world throwing $1000 a piece at something is a lot of money.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hahaxdxd123 4y agojesus I fucking love this absolute gigachad Little kids playing football look up to Tom Brady, those playing basketball look up to LeBron - as someone who aspires to be part of the American elite, I look up to guys like this :) <3
- bergenty 4y ago
- pixel_tracing 4y agoYour vernacular and view on the world is cringe at best, I mean “gigachad,” this guy? Lol
- LightG 4y agoAnd? I heard crypto wasn't regulated. The man can do what he likes. (no moral opinion implied).
- sg47 4y agogrifto
- anm89 4y agoI've never wanted to see someone get the book thrown at them so badly. This guy was so egregious. And the tweets just calling everyone who was calling this months in advance, "poor". Seriously hope they nail him.
- limaoscarjuliet 4y ago
- hd4 4y agoI genuinely don't get how people are so surprised at what seems to me like yet another DeFi exit scam. What's different about this one other than the scale?
- sytelus 4y agoSo we don't trust government to print money but it makes sense to let 20 year old print money for us.
- ajaimk 4y agoThere’s nothing in here. The article literally repeats the headline 4-5 times with no further details.
- lvl102 4y agoIt’s all unraveling including how shitcoins fed into BTC/ETH and meme stocks for two long years. But the SEC is hellbent on scapegoating Robinhood. I truly don’t know why we even have the SEC. They consistently fail to address egregious market flaws.
- break_the_bank 4y agotangential but related. It’s a grifters economy. I am worried that nothing would come of this and a few years later a16z would be funding his Series A on his next thing like they did with Adam Neuman and the Goddess Nature Token.
- tremarley 4y agoTerraLabs were able to execute on something that many people tried and failed to do. If LUNA didn't fail, people wouldn't be complaining right now. I think all of these reports and and complaints aren't justified
- manuelabeledo 4y ago> If LUNA didn't fail, people wouldn't be complaining right now But it did.
- VHRanger 4y agoYes, they executed on a classic Ponzi scheme except it grew to 11 figures before imploding Luna failing was always a question of when, not if, given the Anchor protocols structure
- dqpb 4y ago> TerraLabs were able to execute on something that many people tried and failed to do. Weren’t able.
- fortran77 4y agoIt’s the future of money!
- haltingproblem 4y agoThe biggest benefit touted of Blockchain based currencies is the ease and low cost of transaction. Both are anything but. Take cost for example. India's UPI supports 5B transactions per month which are _free_ to users at the cost of perhaps $10-20 million to the govt which subsidizes it. Compare that to the US restaurants (and gas pumps) which give you 3-5% discount if you use Cash. At some point a national payment rail makes sense though it offends my capitalistic sensibilities though currency violates that too. The Federal reserve charges $1.28 (one dollar and twenty eight cents) to move about $100 million dollars[1]. That is before volume discounts. Cost of money movement is extremely small because you are just sending a packet. Cross border was hard but was due to interchange between different currency systems but has gotten much cheaper too. I can send payment for less than 1% to most countries near instantaneously and this will only drop. [1] https://www.frbservices.org/resources/fees/wires-2022 https://www.frbservices.org/resources/fees/wires-2022
- yunohn 4y ago> At some point a national payment rail makes sense though it offends my capitalistic sensibilities though currency violates that too. It’s not at all clear to me why anyone thinks that it’s “anti-capitalistic” for a tax-collecting democratic government to provide a digital API to transact with their sovereign fiat currency. Why should that be a rent-seeking competitive business left to the private sector? Could you or someone clarify?
- ken47 4y agoPride goeth before the fall. And this guy has a lot of pride. Pity when intelligence, ethics, and rationality diverge.
- sizzle 4y agoJust how screwed is Do Kwon from this let alone from the Luna ponzi and can he be extradited?
- rasz 4y agoas screwed as any other millionaire, laughing all the way to the bank