Do you still remember the Terra/Luna crash that wiped out countless investors? The story of its main character, Do Kwon, is finally reaching its last chapter.

From the creator of a multi-billion-dollar algorithmic stablecoin empire to a fugitive forging passports and fleeing across the globe, this once-hailed “genius” founder will face sentencing this Thursday in a New York federal court. ⚖️ According to Cointelegraph, he has already pleaded guilty—to two counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. Now the question is: How many years will the judge sentence him to?

The details at the trial are subtle. Federal Judge Paul Engelmayer is concerned not only with the case at hand, but also questioned Kwon in court about his legal troubles in South Korea and Montenegro. After all, this is a cross-border judicial relay: after serving his sentence in the US, he’s very likely to be extradited directly to South Korea. And will the four months he already spent in a Montenegro prison for a fake passport count toward his US sentence? These technicalities will affect the final ruling.

Even more dramatic is the standoff between prosecution and defense. Kwon’s lawyer pleaded, “Five years is enough.” The prosecutor scoffed, “At least twelve years, to start with.” And even after serving time in the US, Kwon will still have to face charges in South Korea—where an arrest warrant has been out since 2022, with a maximum possible sentence of 40 years.

This collapse, which affected hundreds of thousands of investors, has turned from a myth of technological innovation into a regulatory wake-up call. How could an algorithm, a few lines of code, a single promise, wipe out more than $40 billion in market value in just a few days? Kwon’s sentencing is not only a punishment for him personally, but also serves as a collective reflection for the entire crypto industry.

We’ll find out on Thursday. How many years do you think he’ll get? What lessons does this case leave for the industry?