Terra interim CEO says any ‘little progress’ made gets derailed by accusations

Terraform Labs faces a “big hill to climb,” as frequent accusations against Do Kwon are constantly impeding the progress of its various projects in development, according to Terra’s new interim CEO Chris Amani.

During a July 20 Twitter Space titled A Terra Community Talk, Amani joined several Terra employees to discuss the challenges ahead for Terra moving forward. This occurred shortly after Amani was appointed Terra’s new CEO, while the former CEO, Kwon, continued battling legal issues.

He noted that the frequent allegations against Kwon — currently in a jail cell in Montenegro and facing possible extradition to South Korea or the United States — has shattered any momentum Terra has been building recently.

“Every time we would make a little progress, there would be some accusation or something that would derail us”.

On June 19, Cointelegraph reported that Kwon was found guilty of attempting to leave Montenegro using a false Costa Rican passport. He was sentenced to four months in prison despite reportedly telling the court that he wasn’t aware the passport was allegedly forged. 

Amani commented on Kwon’s situation, saying it is “incredibly hard” to watch what he is going through right now, expressing his hope that Kwon’s name will be cleared so he can “come back and participate” as soon as possible.

Regarding Terra’s current developments, Amani revealed there are “maybe nine” different projects at various levels of development to be released over the coming months.

He declared that no new tokens will be launched with any of these new developments, as the focus is to “drive utility” back to its native token, Terra (LUNA).

We have 3 projects on the shelf, close to complete, looking for teams to finish off and launch on Terra. If you have a team to take one and want to learn more, let @mc_ust know.

— Chris Amani (@fleece_cannon) July 20, 2023

Amani emphasized that it will be a “big hill to climb,” but he believes it is not a unique situation within the cryptocurrency industry. 

“This is not going to be easy rebuilding; I mean, nothing is easy in crypto right now,” he said.

He explained that the shortage of liquidity is due to decentralized finance applications having to compete with risk-free rates of returns that are “fairly compelling right now.”

Related: Legal proceedings start for Terraform Labs co-founder in South Korea: Report

He further acknowledged that Terra currently faces difficulty competing with other layer 1 blockchain projects, as it “doesn’t even have a treasury of Luna.“

“Despite the lack of activity in crypto, despite the bear market, it’s still incredibly competitive from a layer 1 perspective. There are still teams with very big treasuries that can pay developers a lot of money to come build on their blockchain.”

However, he claims that most employees have chosen to stay with the company, despite the controversies it has faced. 

“We have been able to hold a large portion of the team that was here before the depeg,” he stated.

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