Do we like them?

Do we like Do Kwon?

Our score: 1 out of 10. He pleaded guilty to a fraud a judge called epic in scale, and I found no real good to set against it.

Do Kwon is the South Korean co-founder of Terraform Labs, the company behind the TerraUSD stablecoin. TerraUSD was meant to hold steady at one US dollar. When it and its sister token Luna collapsed in 2022, roughly US$40 billion in value went with them, and plenty of ordinary investors were caught in it.

On the court side, it ended in a Manhattan federal courtroom. In August 2025 Kwon pleaded guilty to two counts, conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud, admitting he misled investors about TerraUSD. On 11 December 2025 Judge Paul Engelmayer sentenced him to 15 years. That was more than the 12 years prosecutors sought and far above the five his lawyers asked for.

The judge called it “a fraud on an epic, generational scale” and said few federal frauds had caused as much harm. Kwon told the court he was sorry to the victims. Fair enough, but an apology only counts for something if the actions follow, and a prison term doesn't show that yet.

On the harm test, I searched for anything he's said or done about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants, vaccines or the climate, and came up empty. I found no campaigning, no culture-war grift and no dodgy company on that front. That's a gap in the record, not a clean bill of health. His harm was financial and it was enormous, and that's picked up under the good-person test.

There's more to come. Reports in December 2025 said South Korean prosecutors want him tried at home as well, and that his plea deal lets him ask for a transfer to Korea after serving half his US term. Nothing newer than that turned up, and I couldn't find anything he's done that's genuinely good for others, such as charity or standing up for people at a cost to himself.