Terraform founder’s downfall raises broader questions

“My mother never told me what I needed to be great at. She simply wanted greatness itself. I was raised to be a highly functional being without a clear purpose.”

On Dec. 11 local time, a trial was held at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan for Kwon Do-hyung, 34, the former CEO of Terraform Labs. On that day, Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison for promoting his cryptocurrencies, Terra and Luna, through numerous false statements and fraudulent tactics. The scheme triggered a collapse worth $40 billion, or about 59 trillion won, inflicting irreparable damage on hundreds of thousands of investors worldwide.

Ahead of sentencing, Kwon sent a letter to the judge seeking leniency. In the letter, he described what he called a relatively unusual upbringing. He wrote that when he was eight, his father promised to buy him toys if he read Harry Potter aloud, prompting him to teach himself English. He added that his mother believed he was destined for greatness and removed anything she considered a distraction, from televisions to computers.

Kwon wrote that while other children his age listened to popular music, he consumed classical audiobooks and biographies of Alexander the Great and Napoleon. While his friends played board games, he said, he was given puzzles designed for gifted children, remarking with self-mockery that only God knew where his mother found them. He also wrote that although he was admitted to several universities, including Oxford and Stanford, he was rejected by Harvard University, adding that his mother was deeply shocked, burst into tears and left the room.

As he suggested, Kwon was academically and functionally exceptional from an early age. At a time when foreign language high schools carried far greater prestige than they do today, he gained admission to Daewon Foreign Language High School, widely regarded as the most competitive of its kind. He later entered Stanford University based on a strong record of victories in English debate competitions during his school years. He even published a book built around this story, which at the time was viewed in education circles as a resume differentiation strategy. It is not difficult to imagine how much effort and financial resources his parents invested in raising him.

Yet his subsequent actions make it difficult to avoid the conclusion that something critically important was missing from his education. In May 2022, just before Terra and Luna collapsed simultaneously, Kwon gained notoriety for mocking critics who questioned him, saying, “I do not debate with the poor. Sorry I do not have spare change to give you.” He also claimed that 95 percent of cryptocurrencies, excluding his own, would disappear, adding that watching such failing companies was entertaining.

The indictment filed by the U.S. Department of Justice shows that his conduct remained deeply unethical even after the collapse of Terra and Luna. While publicly claiming he would cooperate with investigators, he told an acquaintance to “tell them to get lost,” and expressed confidence that he could evade punishment by fleeing overseas using a forged passport. It was a level of arrogance and hubris rarely seen in an ordinary individual.

During the trial, the judge said he had received 315 letters from Kwon’s victims and had read them all, sacrificing sleep and canceling other commitments to do so. The judge described the letters as a tour of the human devastation Kwon had caused. Victims from around the world wrote that they had taken their own lives, contemplated suicide, or suffered divorce, bankruptcy and serious declines in health. Yet when the judge asked Kwon whether he had read all the letters, he replied that his legal team had read some of them to him.

One foreign media outlet wrote that Kwon resembled a cryptocurrency given human form. The comment offered a sharp critique of his apparent lack of empathy, his dehumanized worldview and his unchecked ambition, along with the risks inherent in those traits. It raises a broader question about what his extensive education ultimately meant for him. It also prompts reflection on whether Kwon is an isolated case or a product of a wider system that rewards performance over character. In that sense, the Kwon Do-hyung case may be understood not only as a financial crime, but also as a failure of education.