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Crypto Crash Prompts Korea to Hasten Oversight Panel: Report

South Korean Do Kwon co-founded TerraUSD and Luna, two cryptocurrencies that crashed last month, causing mayhem across the industry.


The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it had launched an investigation into allegations about an employee of crypto billionaire Do Kwon's Terraform Labs.
The SEC has charged Terra developer Do Kwon, seen here in a YouTube screengrab from two years ago, with fraud. Interpol has a worldwide alert for the crypto figure, who is on the run and may be in Serbia.

 

South Korea is hastening the launch of a committee to oversee digital assets after the spectacular crypto crash last month that was centred on stablecoin TerraUSD and cryptocurrency Luna, according to local media.

The panel would be launched in the last week of June, reported Korean website NewsPim.

The move follows last month’s crypto crash, prior to which TerraUSD and Luna, two cryptocurrencies founded by South Korean Do Kwon, had been among the world’s most popular digital assets.

Their implosion caused mayhem across the crypto spectrum globally, with bitcoin losing around a quarter of its value from May 9-12.

South Korea’s proposed Digital Assets Committee would serve as a “control tower” until the government is able to draft fundamental legislation on digital assets, NewsPim said.

The committee would monitor the markets and establish guidelines on listing, disclosure, and investor protection. It would also consult a panel made up of the top five South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges – Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Cobit and Gopax.

READ MORE: Stablecoin Crash That Shook Crypto: All You Need to Know

 

Crypto Crash Cost Investors $42bn

Both tokens are affiliated with Terra, a blockchain platform co-founded by Do Kwan and, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, investors in them have lost around $42 billion.

Worth nearly $100 in late April, Luna is now trading at a fraction of one cent. Reckoning they have little to lose with prices so low, South Korean speculators in recent days have piled back into Luna, which lost 99.99% of its value during the crypto crash after its paired stablecoin TerraUSD collapsed. “Luna was once a major coin of top-10 market capitalisation, so they will do whatever it takes to revive it,” one hopeful investor wrote in a blog on South Korea’s internet platform Naver, without saying who “they” could be.

The blogger said he had bought 300,000 Luna over the weekend at 0.33 won ($0.0003) each, using an international crypto exchange.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission warned people on Tuesday against investing in Luna.

 

  • George Russell, with Reuters

 

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George Russell

George Russell is a freelance writer and editor based in Hong Kong who has lived in Asia since 1996. His work has been published in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Post, Variety, Forbes and the South China Morning Post.

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