US judge sets start date for Do Kwon's trial to January 26, 2026

PANews, January 9, according to The Block, Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon appeared in court for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday. This was his second appearance in court, marking the high-profile and repeatedly postponed case. of federal cases have entered the discovery stage. If found guilty in connection with the collapse of the TerraUST stablecoin, he faces up to 130 years in prison. Wednesday's "initial meeting" is intended to determine whether the U.S. case can be resolved without a trial and to iron out other pre-trial details. U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer set a trial start date of January 26, 2026 and encouraged plea negotiations.

The U.S. government pointed out that the parties to the lawsuit submitted 6 terabytes of evidence for discovery, including four mobile phones, social media accounts and other non-public information that Kwon had when he was in prison in Montenegro, Montenegro, much of which required translation and Decrypt. Prosecutors said some of the data may have been collected without a search warrant and that encryption keys appeared to be "lost."

Prosecutor Jared Lenow noted that the trial could last up to six weeks, with the prosecution alone taking four weeks. The judge also questioned whether securities laws would play a role in Kwon's case, saying "the jury needs to be extremely clear-eyed." Prosecutors said it was immaterial to their case whether Bitcoin or USDT were commodities, noting that District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled in a previous case that "Terraform's crypto assets are investment contracts."