Do Kwon Denies Ownership of Frozen Bitcoins; Blockchain Proves Otherwise

Do Kwon has claimed that the 3,313 BTC frozen by South Korean prosecutors has nothing to do with him, but blockchain transactions tell a slightly different story.

The LUNA founder had been tied to the funds by the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office, which claims he cashed out the US$39.6 million worth of Bitcoin through KuCoin and OKX shortly after the warrant for his arrest was issued.

Read more: Do Kwon Makes “Zero Effort to Hide” But Tried Cashing Out 3,313 BTC After Arrest Warrant

In a thread on Twitter, Do Kwon claimed he does not use either trading platform and that none of his funds have been frozen.

“I don’t get the motivation behind spreading this falsehood – muscle flexing? But to what end?” He tweeted. “Once again, I don’t even use Kucoin and OkEx, have no time to trade, no funds have been frozen. I don’t know whose funds they’ve frozen, but good for them, hope they use it for good.”

Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) also claimed that their treasury “hasn’t created any new wallets or moved $BTC or other tokens held by LFG since May 2022,” whilst providing their wallet address: bc1q9d4ywgfnd8h43da5tpcxcn6ajv590cg6d3tg6axemvljvt2k76zs50tv4q

However a deeper dive into the blockchain by Twitter account @ErgoBTC suggests LFG’s claim may not be as true as it seems.

“While it may be true that this is the only formally “declared” wallet controlled by the LFG, they seem to have failed to account for the trail of bread crumbs left by the change outputs used to fund their new declared wallet,” the Twitter user states.

“Shortly after initial withdrawal from Binance, a 665 BTC spend was made to Kucoin. On May 16, the large withdrawal made the 313 BTC spend back to the new LFG address… An obvious sign that these associated coins are associated with LFG,” @ErgoBTC explains.

“Spends from the transaction sequence have continued for the last several months. With funds ending up at the same Kucoin and OkEx addresses.”

Blockchain’s key selling point is transparency, and LFG’s attempt to obfuscate the truth is bewildering. “Watching some random guy on Twitter use the Bitcoin blockchain to track down the location of funds tied to an internationally wanted fugitive really goes to show how silly the “Bitcoin helps keep criminals undetected/untraceable” argument is; it’s actually quite the opposite,” FatManTerra responded to the discovery.

Meanwhile, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a public notice on Wednesday stating it would invalidate Do Kwon’s passport.

“Our Department would like to send a ‘Notice of Order for Return of Passport’ to you by registered mail,” the notice said. “… we inform you that the validity of your passports will be invalidated and administratively invalidated.”

Kwon has 14 days to return his passport and will not be able to leave South Korea if he is currently there.