- Terraform Labs (TFL) and co-founder Do Kwon allegedly conducted a smear campaign and issued threats against a community member.
- The member accused Terraform Labs of running a smear campaign against him on Twitter.
Terraform Labs (TFL), the company behind the now-defunct algorithmic stablecoin TerraUST [UST], and its co-founder, Do Kwon, are again in the news for allegedly conducting a smear campaign and issuing threats against one of their own community members.
On 5 January, Terraform Labs shared that Jimmy Le, a community member entrusted with Terra community funds, refused to return funds obtained during the genesis AirDrop.
1/ Dear Terra Community,
For transparency, we would like to bring your attention to an issue regarding Jimmy Le (@stablejim), a community member who was entrusted with Terra community funds but has now refused to return funds gained from this entrustment to the Community Pool.
— Terra 🌍 Powered by LUNA 🌕 (@terra_money) January 5, 2023
Individuals who held the original native LUNC token received the newly minted LUNA token as an AirDrop. Individual signers received LUNA airdrops that they should not have received due to an error in CW3 multi-sig wallets.
Despite their best efforts, Terraform Labs claimed that all other multisig signers returned the accidental AirDrop, except Jimmy.
Jimmy accuses Terraform Labs of running a smear campaign
Jimmy, on the other hand, accused Terraform Labs of running a smear campaign against him on Twitter. He claimed that the firm purposefully presented only one side of the story and lied about their interactions. He claimed that he never refused to return the unintentional AirDrop.
Jimmy further stated that he transferred the liquid portion of the AirDrop (approximately $1 to 1.5 million) to the multisig Terraform Labs specified, and that none of the AirDropped tokens were undelegated or sold.
I followed through with their request and transferred the liquid portion of the airdrop (~$1-1.5m USD) to the multisig TFL specified. To date, none of the airdropped tokens have ever been undelegated or sold.https://t.co/gJl5Z8tstK
— jimmy 🧠 (@stablejim) January 9, 2023
However, he later discovered that the chain upgrade did not reset his vesting balances to the community pool, but enabled the manual transfer of vesting tokens to the community pool. This prompted him to reconsider his tax concerns.
Jimmy also stated that tax-related discussions with the Terraform Labs continued until December 2022, when Terraform Labs abruptly posted the Twitter thread on 6 January. He claimed that the smear campaign caught him off guard because they were in the middle of reconciling. He also shared personal messages from Do Kwon, which allegedly threatened him with various consequences, including a threat to personal safety.
The message read:
“Just make it right, it’s not worth the hassle and endangerment this will bring to your life and/or reputation going forward. That’s all I’m gonna say anymore on the subject.”
The whole exchange riled up the crypto Twitter community. Fatman, a Twitter handle dedicated to the Terra-LUNA fiasco, was particularly incensed. Fatman lauded Jimmy and criticized Do Kwon, saying that someone who is on the run from Interpol should not threaten others for getting legal and tax advice.
TFL accidentally sent this dude an airdrop. Do Kwon demands it back. Dude tries getting tax implication advice so as not to get sued by the IRS. Do Kwon sparks a public smear campaign out of the blue & sends vague legal threats through barely competent law firm Dentons. Cringed. https://t.co/AdHkxjPMTw pic.twitter.com/WYFYWx6M1z
— FatMan (@FatManTerra) January 9, 2023
Source: https://ambcrypto.com/accidental-terra-luna-airdrop-leads-to-new-controversy-with-do-kwon-details-inside/