Court Grants Terra Founder Do Kwon’s Extradition. The Question Is, to Where?

Former Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon may soon be extradited to the US or South Korea following a ruling from the Montenegrin High Court. Kwon has agreed to be deported to South Korea, but the final decision lies with Justice Minister Andrej Milovic.

While it is unclear where Do Kwon will face charges after serving prison time for forgery in Montenegro, the minister hinted that the region intends to sign an extradition agreement with the US, its chief foreign policy partner. Kwon is also wanted in South Korea for violation of capital markets law.

Kwon Prefers South Korea to US

Kwon’s lawyers have previously contested the legitimacy of allegations leveled by US authorities. They added recently that Kwon was willing to be extradited to South Korea.

Kwon appeared to have vanished after the collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and its sister coin Luna (LUNA) in May last year. UST was a stablecoin that maintained a value of one US dollar through software controlling the minting and burning of LUNA.

The algorithm failed after a series of large UST withdrawals from a stablecoin pool. The minting and burning mechanism had no circuit breaker and eventually tanked the price of both coins to near zero. Korean authorities argue the software never worked at all because the algorithm was too difficult to get right.