Do Kwon Says Alameda Instigated Terra’s Downfall

Do Kwon has accused FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Alameda Research of manipulating the market, leading to the collapse of TerraUSD in May.

In a thread of tweets today, the embattled Terraform Labs co-founder sought explanations on the mystery of large transactions involving large chime crypto lending firms and Alameda shortly before Terra’s crash.

“I think the time has come for Genesis Trading to reveal if they provided the $1B UST shortly before the crash to SBF or Alameda,” said Kwon. Bankruptcy documents have also shown that Alameda borrowed 9 figures in Bitcoin from the now cash-beleaguered lender Voyager on TerraUSD’s depeg date. On the same dates, Alameda is said to have asked other large firms to borrow more cash, raising suspicions of a plan to short BTC to handicap Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) reserves.

“What’s Done In Darkness Will Come To Light”

According to Kwon, while Terra’s crash came in May, the plot to bring down the ecosystem had manifested much earlier.

“This is fairly public knowledge at this point, but the large currency contraction that UST went through in Feb 2021 was started by Alameda, when they sold 500mm UST in minutes to drain its curve pools during the MIM crisis,” he said.

Following that shakeup, Kwon set up a plan to purchase up to $10 billion in Bitcoin to support the stability of the UST stablecoin. Early May, LFG, the nonprofit organization built to support Terra would announce that it had received $1.5 billion in Bitcoin for its UST stablecoin reserves from Genesis Trading and Three Arrows Capital after a counter swap of UST for Bitcoin. Days after LUNA’s crash, reports of a possible conspiracy involving top-notch hedge funds and crypto lending firm to topple terraUST started making rounds. 

“What’s Done In Darkness Will Come To Light,” he concluded.

Kwon’s claims come even as reports emerge that Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Sam Bankman-Fried and his hedge fund orchestrated trades in a way that led to the collapse of Luna and TerraUSD(UST).

According to a Dec 7 report by the New York Times(NYT), although Fried said that he was “not aware of any market manipulation and certainly never intended to engage in market manipulation,” people familiar with the matter noted that a majority of sell orders for Terra USD had been traced to Alameda, which has also placed a big bet on the price of LUNA falling.

That said, as Mr Fried continues to take fire following the collapse of his trading firm, the emergence of market manipulation claims touching on Terra adds to the legal storm brewing around the businessman.