Morning Minute: Do Kwon gets 15 years for $40 billion Terra Luna fraud

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analyzes and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s most important news:

• Crypto Majors Are Recovering After Recent Sell-Off; BTC back to $92k, SOL leads
• Solana announced the launch of Firedancer live on Mainnet
• YouTube has announced creator payments in stablecoins
• The DTCC has been cleared by the SEC to offer tokenization services
• Coinbase is reportedly launching prediction markets and tokenization next week

🌑 Justice, finally

Nearly three years after the $40 billion evaporation of Terra, an American judge finally ruled.

Do Kwon goes away for fifteen years.

📌What happened

A US court has convicted the founder of Terraform Labs Do Kwon to 15 years in prisonconcluding a multi-year saga that included a global manhunt, multiple extradition attempts – and one of the largest asset destructions in crypto history.

The judge highlighted the “eye-popping” damage caused by Terra’s collapse, an event that wiped out billions in private savings, destabilized major funds and caused a cascading credit default among lenders and market makers.

Hundreds of victims submitted statements describing financial ruin, broken trust and lasting mental health impacts.

Prosecutors argued that Kwon misled investors about the reserves backing the UST and misrepresented the stability of the algorithmic design.

Ultimately, the court opted for a medium sentence: significant, but significantly less than the 40+ years prosecutors wanted.

Terraform Labs is still in bankruptcy and still faces civil penalties from the SEC case.

🗣️What they say

“The blame should be directed at me. I failed to operate the system properly. I want to prevent other crypto founders from remaining where I am now.” – Do Kwon

🧠Why it matters

This was one of the biggest black swan events in crypto and the spark that lit the fuse for the 2022 bear market sell-off.

After the dust settled, Terra had fallen from an ATH of over $100 to under $0.50.

Mass destruction of wealth.

And Do Kwon and his bravado clearly played a key role in that destruction.

Crypto has learned some lessons from Terra Luna, namely: no more algorithmic stablecoins.

But 15 years will not heal the wounds of those most affected by Terra Luna’s destruction.

And here we are at the end of 2025, just three years later, and some are repeating the mistakes of the past (namely being too focused on exchanging perpetrators and overleveraging the debt).

It’s time to take these lessons to heart and adjust your trading style if you find yourself constantly being influenced.

Because the most important rule in this game is to survive.

🌎 Macrocrypto and memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my attention:

• Crypto Majors Rebounded From Wednesday’s Selloff; BTC +2% at $92,200; ETH +1% at $3,230, BNB +2% at $886, SOL +6% at $139
• MNT (+10%), HYPE (+8%), AAVE (+7%) and SUI(+6%) top movers
• Solana has announced that Firedancer is officially live on mainnet and has been running on a few validators for 100 days
• YouTube announced that makers can now make payments in stablecoins powered by PayPal’s PYUSD
• The DTCC is now authorized to offer tokenization services following a no-action letter from the SEC
• Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison in the US for the $40 billion Terra collapse
• Coin base Removed USDC rewards for free users and limited the ~4% yield to Coinbase One subscribers only
• Save the children launched a Bitcoin fund aimed at accelerating and improving transparency in crisis aid disbursements
• Clarna partnered with Stripe’s Privy to build a mass-market crypto wallet

In corporate bonds/ETFs

• Public companies with BTC and the DATs together bought 10,750 BTC last month, despite 5 DATs together selling 1,900 BTC

In Memes / Onchain movers

• Memecoin Leaders are mostly green with Fartcoin leading; DOGE +2%, Shiba +2%, PEPE +2%, PENGU +2%, BONK +5%, TRUMP +1%, SPX +2% and FARTCOIN +12%
• TROLL (+35%) and Franklin (+16%) were notable onchain meme movers

💰 Token, airdrop and protocol tracker

Here’s an overview of the top token, protocol and airdrop news of the day:

• Coin base According to Bloombeg, the company will announce prediction markets and tokenized shares next week
• Sports Point Fun an investment assured of Coinbase Ventures and announced their ICO for December 16th
• Rekt drinks introduced its new Grapefruit flavor in collaboration with X Games
• Solstice announced the SLX token sale is coming on December 22nd
• LiFi announced a $29 million Series A raise led by Multicoin

🚚 What’s happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines of the day in NFTs:

• NFT Leaders were again largely red; Punks +4% at 30 ETH, Pudgy -3% at 5.02, BAYC -3% at 4.86 ​​ETH; Hypurr’s +8% on 528 HYPE
• Good Vibes Club (+8%) and Creepz (+8%) were notable movers
• Doodles cut off the offer of their Doopies coin to 8,888, leading to a sell-off