Wallet Tied to Terra’s UST Depeg Identified to be Jane Street’s: Research

The implosion of Terra last summer still haunts the crypto industry. Numerous post-mortem reports have gone into detail about the wallets that contributed to the collapse while simultaneously adding curiosity to a certain “Wallet A.”

Wintermute’s researcher, Igor Igamberdiev, believes that “there is a good chance” one of the wallets linked to the UST depeg could, in fact, be tied to trading firm Jane Street.

The “Wallet A”

In the latest Twitter thread, Igamberdiev pointed out that the mysterious Wallet A, which played a significant part in the event, swapped 85M UST for USDC and imbalanced the UST/3CRV Curve pool. He further stated that Clearpool unknowingly revealed three addresses associated with Jane Street during its last May announcement when the trading firm borrowed 25 million USDC from BlockTower.

According to Igamberdiev, Wallet A borrowed $15 million from the lender and repaid the funds with an additional $10 million two weeks after the collapse. It even invested $150,000 in a decentralized exchange called Tonic and borrowed $25 million that it deposited into a Coinbase wallet. The deposit to the exchange wallet was deemed “interesting” by the researcher because it had received 84.5 million USDC from Wallet A, which ultimately resulted in the depeg of the UST stablecoin.

Moreover, no other interactions were recorded besides these deposits; thereby indicating that the wallet could have belonged to the same entity.

“This adds additional color to rumors about Jane Street participating in the theoretical Terra bailout.”

Despite being tied to the fateful event, Igamberdiev asserted that the transactions do not prove Jane Street had any malicious intent.

Aftermath

The fallout prompted Terra to rebrand and even launch a new LUNA coin, while the original became known as LUNA Classic (LUNC). The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged the former boss of Terraform Labs, Do Kwon, with securities fraud. While Kwon’s whereabouts are still not unknown, according to the regulatory agency, he is reportedly hiding out in Serbia.

South Korea issued a warrant for the exec’s arrest last September. Interpol also issued a “red notice” for him or a call to international law enforcement authorities to “locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.” However, in an interview, Kwon denied receiving a copy of the red notice.