What is Tai Mo Shan? Jump Trading Subsidiary Named in SEC’s Terra Lawsuit

A subsidiary of Jump Trading was named in the SEC’s lawsuit against Terraform Labs and Do Kwon.

In SEC documents, the commission named Tai Mo Shan as a member of the Jump Trading Group. The entity was also one of Robinhood’s largest market makers in 2021.

The documents list Tai Mo Shan as a Cayman Islands-exempted company with a Chicago, Illinois, address.

According to Harneys, a Cayman Islands-exempted company is a company that has been registered under the notion that the “operations of the company are to be carried on mainly outside the Cayman Islands.” 

In the new documents, filed on Friday, May 12, Tai Mo Shan and Terra entered into a contract in 2019. 

Per the document, Terra agreed to loan Tai Mo Shan 30 million LUNA in November 2019 with a 2% annualized interest fee payable in Luna. 

The contract was signed by Matthew Hinerfield, who is listed on LinkedIn as general counsel for Jump, and Do Kwon.

An amended contract between Terra and Tai Mo Shan, this one dated July 2021, was included in the SEC’s filings. Jump agreed to deliver over 61 million to Tai Mo Shan through monthly installments.

In 2020, Do Kwon sent an email to Terra’s investors informing them of an arrangement it entered into with Jump Trading. 

Per the email, Jump was loaned 30 million Luna in exchange for Jump deploying resources to “improve liquidity of Terra and Luna” and participating in “on-chain governance.”

The documents show over $1 billion in profit through its Terraform dealings. 

Neither Jump nor Tai Mo Shan have been accused of wrongdoing in connection to TerraUSD in the SEC lawsuit.

Jump, however, is facing a class action lawsuit alleging that the trading company aided and abetted a Terra fraud scheme and earned $1.3 billion from manipulating Terra.

“Plaintiff’s allegations are based upon personal knowledge as to himself and his own acts, and upon information and belief as to all other matters based on the investigation conducted by and through Plaintiff’s attorneys, which investigation included, among other things, a review of the whitepaper of the digital assets at issue, press releases, media reports, and other publicly disclosed reports and information about Defendants,” the lawsuit states.

Blockworks has not verified the allegations against Jump.

Last summer, the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD depegged from the US dollar, and wiped $40 billion from investor wallets. 

The SEC charged Terraform and Do Kwon earlier this year, alleging that Kwon and Terraform “aggressively marketed” its cryptocurrencies to US investors by “posting information and promotional materials to accounts on several publicly accessible online social media platforms, such as Twitter accounts, blog posts, YouTube, and messaging applications like Telegram.”

Both the US and South Korea have sought extradition for Do Kwon, who is currently out on bail in Montenegro on falsified documents charges. 

Kwon was arrested in March and faces a June trial date.

Jump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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