To The Moon

In May, 10-year-old Youna was suddenly picked up from school by her parents. It was said they were taking her to Jeju Island to experience countryside life for a month. No one expected Youna would never return.

At the end of June when Youna's family of three was found again. In a Korean seawater farm, an Audi car was recovered from under the water with three highly decomposed bodies lying inside.

The police checked Youna's father's computer and found that before his death, the word he searched most frequently was - "Luna coin".

Luna coin was once a global sensation, ranking among the world's top ten virtual currencies. In May this year, an unprecedented crash occurred, plunging from $90 to less than $0.0001 in 48 hours, nearly zero.

Police speculate that after failing to speculate on coins and incurring huge debts, Youna's parents chose to take their daughter to commit suicide.

More than 100 days after the family's death, Do Kwon, the founder of Luna Coin and the man brought the family to their death, was wanted by South Korean police on September 14.

Do Kwon, 31, is an egotistical, flamboyant and aggressive man known as the "Korean Musk". He has more than 1 million followers on Twitter, many of whom are avid followers.

1.Do Kwon- A Mad Genius & A Paper Billionaire

Born in 1991, Do Kwon graduated from Daewonwha High School in 2010, one of the most prestigious schools in Korea. In 2010, he graduated from Daewonwai High School, which is full of top students and had a record number of graduates accepted to top schools in the United States.

From 2010 to 2015, Do Kwon attended Stanford University where he majored in computer science.

Just three months after graduation, he founded a company called Anyfi in Gyeonggi Province, claiming to build a "free Internet world". Anyone who installed Anyfi software could unlock Wi-Fi access.

Anyfi quickly gained the favor of investors, raising $1 million from the Korean government and angel funders. Do Kwon chose to resign from Anyfi at the end of 2017.

He was more interested in creating a decentralized cryptocurrency empire than building a free internet world. He first wrote a white paper on decentralized payment systems, proposing that people could hold a so-called "stable coin":

one that would maintain its value and replace any fiat currency for online and offline transactions around the world.

This became the prototype of Terraform Labs (Terra), which Do Kwon later founded. With the Terra blockchain network, he launched the stable coin UST and its sister token Luna coin.

Terra attracted 15 investment giants in its first round of funding. With these giants at its back, Terra quickly began to take off and grow into the second largest blockchain in decentralized finance. In just two to three years, the value of cryptocurrencies under Do Kwon's stewardship peaked at nearly $100 billion.

Ironically, Terra's cryptocurrency has no real collateral or money behind it, but rather uses financial engineering to maintain price stability. Do Kwon has been jokingly referred to as a "paper billionaire.

2. Controversial Luna & Do Kwon Himself

In fact, the Terra cryptocurrency has been controversial since its introduction.

Critics argue that

in the highly volatile world of cryptocurrencies, it is simply unrealistic to keep the value of a stable coin at $1 at all times. This means that the platform would have to completely bypass all aspects of the traditional financial system, such as banking and regulation.

In October 2020, SEC subpoenaed Do Kwon, suspecting that Terra had allegedly violated the law by "selling tokenized synthetic shares that lacked actual assets.

Do Kwon instead took the SEC to court in a lawsuit, claiming that the subpoena was "issued in an improper manner" and that public service failed to meet its duty of confidentiality.

In response, Bloomberg commented,

"Do Kwon seems to enjoy causing trouble, and his online persona is built on confident and combative, even childish, tweets.

For example, he publicly disliked British economist Frances Coppola, calling her "poor" and saying

Do Kwon has attracted more than 1 million followers, all of whom have an exclusive name "Lunatics".

However, the Korean media has been relentless in pointing out that Do Kwon's image is all false marketing.

After graduating from college, Do Kwon only interned at Apple for 3 months and did business with Microsoft for 3 months. However, when introducing Terra to the public, Do Kwon has always emphasized that it is a "cryptocurrency created by Stanford graduates, Apple and Microsoft engineers".

3. The Collapse of Terra Empire

In an interview in early May this year, on the eve of the collapse of Terra's empire, Do Kwon said

"95% of cryptocurrency companies are about to die, and it's fun to watch them die one by one."

Just a few days after the interview, on May 8, Terra used  $150 million UST to adjust its liquidity. But 10 minutes later, someone suddenly dumped $84 million in USTs, which then triggered a wave of selling and panic.

The situation quickly spiraled out of control.

The UST accelerated its decoupling from the dollar and collapsed on May 9, losing 99% of its value in two days. By May 17, the price of both Luna coin and UST went to almost zero, and Terra's nearly $60 billion market cap nearly evaporated completely.

Terra's empire collapsed.

4. Families Broken? Founder Is On The Run?

South Korea's newspaper said that about 58 trillion won of Luna coin market cap evaporated from the country's market, with most of the investors behind it being young people.

According to Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC),

3.08 million young people aged 20-39 invest in cryptocurrencies in South Korea, accounting for 23% of the entire population in this age group. In other words, one out of every five young people has purchased cryptocurrencies.

In 2022, various cryptocurrencies are continuing to fall.

• Bitcoin has fallen below $20,000, a 70% drop from its peak.
• Ethereum has fallen from a high of $4,800 last year to around $1,400.
• Luna coin has been even worse, going almost to zero overnight.

In South Korea, many families like Youna were destroyed because of the collapse of Luna.

In the days following the Luna coin crash, searches for "Mapo Bridge" increased dramatically on Korean search engines. The bridge, which is near brokerage houses and investment institutions, has been a popular suicide spot in Korea.

In addition to "Mapo Bridge," the search terms "Do Kwon" and "biggest scammer in history" were also used in searches related to Luna Coin.

In fact, from the very beginning of Do Kwon's creation of Luna Coin, doubts have never stopped. Peers and financial practitioners have constantly argued that its algorithm technology and operating model are problematic and likely to collapse.

Do Kwon, as the initiator of Luna coin, is on the run before he was wanted by the South Korean police for alleged tax evasion and fraud. 

Although he says that he is not on the run, no one knows where he is.

When he was in his prime, Do Kwon said "I won't debate with poor people.

In the end, when he made countless families broken, he only left a sentence, "I'm sorry for the loss I caused you due to my invention.