Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the criminal trial of Kwon Do-hyung, the key figure in the collapse of cryptocurrencies Terra and Luna, is expected to take place in January next year in the United States.
Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Southern Federal Court of New York tentatively set the trial start date for January 26, 2026, during a pre-trial conference for Kwon’s case. The initial trial is anticipated to last four to eight weeks.
Kwon, who had been on the run since the Luna and Terra crash in May 2022, was apprehended on March 23 last year at Podgorica Airport in Montenegro while attempting to board a flight to Dubai. The U.S. and South Korea had indicted Kwon, but neither country had an extradition treaty with Montenegro, so they have been competing to secure his custody.
On December 27 last year, the Montenegro Ministry of Justice ended the two-year-long confusion surrounding the extradition process by approving Kwon’s extradition to the United States.
Subsequently, on December 31, Kwon was extradited from Montenegro to the U.S. and was imprisoned in a federal detention center in Brooklyn, New York. On January 2, he appeared at an arraignment hearing and pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. He faces nine charges, including securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud, and conspiracy to manipulate the market.
The U.S. Department of Justice has stated that if Kwon is found guilty of all nine criminal charges, he could face a maximum sentence of 130 years. The U.S. legal system employs consecutive sentencing, where penalties for individual crimes are imposed separately and then added together.
In April last year, a U.S. jury decided Kwon committed fraud in a civil suit filed by his company, Terraform Labs, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In June of the same year, Terraform Labs agreed to pay $4.47 billion in restitution and fines. However, Kwon denied allegations of deceiving investors in that lawsuit.
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