Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images
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Last fall, when crypto founder Do Kwon threw a big bash in New York to celebrate and showcase the potential of his own work, he was a rising celebrity in the insular world of digital currencies. He had created two of the fastest-growing projects in the space: TerraUSD and Luna. At the time, the two interrelated cryptocurrencies were worth about $15 billion, on their way to more than quadrupling in just a few months.
Before the event kicked off, the 30-year-old did a preshow interview that was livestreamed on YouTube. He sat before a microphone, wearing a bulky blue jacket with a pair of Ray-Bans tucked into the breast pocket, and placed a nearly full beer on the table. Kwon’s shtick — the hyperconfident smirk in service of vague promises of transforming the world and building a global community of users — is familiar stuff to anyone who has paid attention to Silicon Valley over the past 20 years. What was new was that, instead of an app or a mobile device, Kwon wanted to dominate by upending the way everyone spends money, an ambition so huge he might as well have wanted to replace the air we breathe or the water we drink. In…
