Terra’s Luna, Luna Classic Tokens Plunge as South Korea Issues Arrest Warrant for Do Kwon

Terra-based decentralized finance products saw outflows of over $20 million Wednesday morning.

AccessTimeIconSep 14, 2022 at 9:54 a.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 4:43 p.m. UTC

Terra tokens luna (LUNA) and luna classic (LUNC) plunged as a South Korean court issued an arrest warrant against Do Kwon, the network's founder, and five others on Wednesday morning.

LUNA fell 36% in the past 24 hours while LUNC dropped 25%, with much of the price movement coming after news of the warrant was made public on Wednesday morning. The warrant was issued four months after the collapse of the $40 billion Terra ecosystem and its algorithmic stablecoin (UST), which was the first domino to fall in this year's crypto winter.

Valued locked on Terra-based products fell 30%, dropping from more than $55 million to under $29 million at the time of this writing as the tokens fell and with investors likely withdrawing capital, data shows.

Last week, LUNA gained 200% in a speculative rally following the release of a fundamental catalyst on luna classic, the network’s old tokens. Those gains were mostly reversed as traders took profits in the following days, and are now nearly negligible as LUNA tokens slump back to the prices of Sept. 5.

(This is a developing story.)

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Shaurya is the Deputy Managing Editor for the Data & Tokens team, focusing on decentralized finance, markets, on-chain data, and governance across all major and minor blockchains.


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