About a year ago, on March 14, 2022, cryptocurrency trader GiganticRebirth (GCR) invited then the co-founder of the CEO of Terraform Labs, Do Kwon, made a $10 million bet that the price of Terra Luna (LUNC) would be lower than the then price of $92.4 per token a year later. Blockchain executives accepted the offer, the second in the series after the previous day, when cryptocurrency trader Algod offered bet $ 1 million that LUNC will be lower than $ 88 per token on March 13, 2023, which Kwon also accepted, resulting in two bets worth $ 11 million and a prize pool of $ 22 million.
Funds, totaling $22 million from all participants, are held in escrow by the Cobie blockchain personality at an Ethereum address. Cobie claimed at that time, the hot wallet was given to the participants “on my cell phone when I was in the middle of Africa, when I woke up there was $22m deposited.”
“I don’t want 22m in a mobile tent when I live in a tent among lions lmao.”
As toward by Cobie and proven by blockchain data, the blockchain personality paid bets from hot wallets in April 2022, shortly after LUNC $40 billion and the accompanying algorithmic stablecoin Terra USD (USTC) ecosystem, with LUNC trading with a fractional decimal value close to zero. However, Cobie also stated in December 2022:
“I actually paid the bet shortly after Luna went to 0, then I bought enough Luna to hedge, if it came back to $ 88. But I lost the hedge (held on FTX) so if Luna goes to $ 88 in the next 3 months I bastard”
Because the bet is active until mid-March 2023, Cobie will have to hold the bond even if LUNC collapses, as the funds are paid early, and conditions may vary during settlement. At the time of publication, LUNC is currently trading at $0.000124 per token.
Last November 2022, the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, then the third largest in the world by volume, filed for bankruptcy due to allegations of misappropriating user funds and leaving the deposits of more than 1 million creditors frozen. On April 4, 2022, Cobie transferred prize money and principal, worth $22 million in stablecoins, to the winners of GCR and Algod via FTX. The next flow of funds is unclear.
On September 26, 2022, Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Do Kwon at the request of South Korean prosecutors on fraud charges related to the collapse of Terra Luna. The former blockchain executive is reportedly hiding in Serbia, which does not have an extradition agreement with South Korea. In addition to withdrawing $11 million from the bet, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Department of Justice reportedly began investigating the collapse of Terra Luna on March 14, 2023. A month earlier, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Terraform Labs and former CEO Do. Kwon with “deceiving investors in crypto schemes.”
A one year anniversary since my $1m dollar bet with @stablekwon
When it was in the end it was easy to say that Luna would fall as you can see in the comments, I was mocked as edited.
the masses are often wrong, there is a great lesson https://t.co/Elp9ZMGBTc
– Algod (@AlgodTrading) March 14, 2023