The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged Terraform Labs PTE Ltd. and Do Hyeong Kwon, alleging they conducted a multibillion-dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities. According to the SEC's complaint, from April 2018 until the firm's collapse in May 2022, Terraform and Kwon raised billions of dollars from investors by offering and selling an interconnected suite of crypto asset securities, many in unregistered transactions. The SEC alleges that Terraform and Kwon marketed crypto asset securities to investors seeking to earn a profit, claiming that the tokens would increase in value. In one example, they marketed UST as a "yield-bearing" stablecoin, which they advertised as paying as much as 20% interest through the Anchor Protocol. Bloomberg reported in June that Terraform Labs was being investigated by the SEC as to whether it violated federal investor protection rules. In May, algorithmic stablecoin TerraUST ( UST-USD ) and its sister token Luna (LUNA2-USD) collapsed after the stablecoin lost its peg to the U.S. dollar, wiping out billions of dollars in value. In May, the Terra ecosystem approved Kwon's proposal to revive Luna through a new blockchain called Terra Classic.
