South Korea puts crypto company Terraform Labs' staff on no-fly list

KEY POINTS

• An official at South Korea's Supreme Prosecutors' Office, who declined to be named as is customary in South Korea, said multiple Terraform Labs staff had been put on a no-fly list.
• Terra's UST stablecoin and its sister token luna collapsed last month, sparking a sell-off in crypto markets.
• UST was meant to be pegged 1-to-1 to the U.S. dollar.

The collapse of the Terra ecosystem will go down as one of the most painful and devastating chapters in crypto history.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Several employees of South Korea-based Terraform labs, the company behind the stablecoin TerraUSD, which collapsed last month and roiled cryptocurrency markets, cannot leave the country, prosecutors said.

TerraUSD's paired token, Luna, plunged in value last month, sparking a sell off and igniting a chain reaction that has pushed some major institutions in the crypto sector into severe difficulties. TerraUSD was meant to be pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar.

An official at South Korea's Supreme Prosecutors' Office, who declined to be named as is customary in South Korea, said multiple Terraform Labs staff had been put on a no-fly list.

He added that he could not give further details until after investigations had wrapped up.

A Terraform Labs spokesperson said in a statement, "We are not aware of the details of the reported ban."

Losses associated with the stablecoin also contributed to difficulties at U.S.-based crypto lender Celsius, which suspended withdrawals this month, and Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which is considering options including the sale of assets and a bailout by another firm.

Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, is trading at about $20,000, having lost about half of its value since early May, when the problems with TerraUSD became apparent.