“A lot of things can go wrong,” in Ethena’s yield-generation strategy, said Folkvang CEO Mike van Rossum.
South Korea’s April 10 Election: What’s at Stake for the Crypto Universe
On April 10, 2024, South Korea is heading into its legislative polls which will see multiple parties and coalitions battle it out for 300 seats in the national assembly and political analysts say it will be difficult for either party to get a majority, making any group of voters, including crypto enthusiasts, significant.
New York Jury Finds Do Kwon, Terraform Labs Liable for Fraud in SEC Case
The SEC accused Kwon and his company of misleading investors about the stability of their so-called “algorithmic stablecoin” Terra USD.
Why Is The Price Of LUNC And USTC Up Today?
The prices of LUNC and USTC have both seen a considerable boost in the past day. But although there has been a bit of a recovery in the crypto market, another reason entirely is behind this surge in price and it has everything to do with the currently incarcerated founder of the Terra blockchain, Do Kwon.
Terra Founder Gets Released
Do Kwon, the founder of the billion-dollar Terra blockchain, which collapsed in 2022, has been in prison in Montenegro for months now after being apprehended with fake travel documents. Since then, there have been numerous efforts by both the United States and South Korean governments to get the founder extradited for prosecution in their respective countries to no avail.
Between the two countries vying for extradition, there have been reports that the Montenegrin court is leaning toward extraditing him to South Korea to face charges for the collapse of the blockchain. Despite this, the founder remains in Montenegro as a final decision on his extradition has yet to be made.
While the courts deliberate on where to send the founder, Do Kwon has finally secured a release from prison in Montenegro. According to the release reports, Do Kwon is expected to remain in the country until the courts decide his fate.
Prison Chief Darko Vukcevic confirmed Do Kwon’s release from prison as he says that the disgraced founder has served the entirety of his sentence for the fake travel documents. He was reportedly released on Saturday, March 23, and is currently under house arrest.
LUNC And USTC React To Do Kwon’s Release
The prices of USTC and LUNC have reacted positively to the news of Do Kwon getting released on Saturday. After the news made the round, the prices of both altcoins saw a significant uptick, turning green despite the crypto market continuing to struggle.
The LUNC price saw an over 10% jump from its Sunday lows of $0.00015, reaching as high as $0.000172 before correcting back downward. In the same vein, the USTC price also recorded a 10% increase during this time, going from $0.028 to peak at $0.031.
So far, both altcoins have been able to maintain their gains in the last day, which could signal a continuation in the uptrend. Right now, there is not much resistance for both assets and if Bitcoin continues to rise, then both USTC and LUNC are expected to follow.
At the time of writing, LUNC is trading at $0.0001672 with a 24-hour gain of 9.4%, and USTC is trading at $0.0303 with a 24-hour gain of 5.39%, according to data from Coinmarketcap.
Do Kwon’s Extradition to South Korea Postponed by Montenegrin Supreme Court
Montenegro’s Supreme Court placed a pause on Terra founder Do Kwon’s pending extradition from the Balkan country, issuing an order on Friday that overturns earlier decisions from two lower courts to extradite Kwon to his native South Korea.
Do Kwon’s South Korea Extradition Uncertain After Challenge from Top Prosecutor
Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon’s pending extradition to South Korea has apparently been put on ice following a legal challenge issued Thursday by Montenegro’s top prosecutor.
Do Kwon Can Be Extradited to South Korea, Montenegrin Court Rules: Reports
Kwon successfully appealed a previous decision by the same court to send him to the U.S. instead.
Terra’s Do Kwon Wins Extradition Appeal in Montenegro
Kwon is facing fraud charges in the U.S. around his role in Terra’s collapse.
The Protocol: Bitcoin’s Call for Volunteers, Ethena’s USDe, Blast’s Blast-Off
In this week’s issue of CoinDesk’s newsletter on blockchain technology, we’ve got an exclusive interview with Stacks co-creator Muneeb Ali. PLUS: More than $200 million of blockchain project fundraisings.
Do Kwon Wins Second Chance to Appeal Extradition From Montenegro
The appeal is a minor victory for Kwon, who initially won an appeal in November only for it to be subsequently overturned.
LUNC Price Rally Is Far From Over Following Falling Wedge Breakout, Analyst Says
Over the weekend, the LUNC price saw some of the most bullish price action that sent its price soaring over 20%. This rally eventually brought the price above $0.0001 after struggling around $0.00009 for the last two weeks. However, the tides seem to be completely changing for the altcoin, as one analyst expects the rally to continue.
Prepare For The LUNC Price To Double
The LUNC price, despite having risen so much, is still showing signs of a continuation. This is evident in the Falling Wedge Breakout that was confirmed by crypto analyst Ava Cryptoo on TradingView. This Falling Wedge Breakout is significant as it often precedes some of the most significant rallies in cryptocurrencies, such as LUNC.
The price of the altcoin is currently retesting the significant resistance at $0.000115. Now, this level is significant because rejection from this level had initially stopped the LUNC price breakout on Saturday. Now that the price is starting to retest it again, it shows that the bulls are far from done with this altcoin.
In a scenario where the LUNC price successfully retests and breaks above this level, then the crypto analyst expects that the price will more than double from its current level. They put the price target for the altcoin as high as $0.00022, and the timeline for this is shown to be a matter of days. However, all of this hinges on the fact that the price makes a “Perfect Retest” and breaks out completely.
Why Is The Altcoin Rallying Amid Low Market Sentiment?
The LUNC price breaking out during such slow market movements suggests an end to the accumulation that happened below $0.0001. In addition to this, Binance carrying out its scheduled LUNC burn contributed to the rise in price that was seen this weekend.
Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, has been committed to burning LUNC tokens realized from fees in an effort to help reduce its vast supply. The latest burn which took place on February 1 saw approximately 2.1 billion tokens performantly removed from circulation.
This is the 18th burn that the crypto exchange has carried out, each time removing hundreds of millions to billions of tokens from circulation. Following this burn, the crypto exchange has helped the LUNC burn figure cross the 51 billion threshold.
A wave of excitement naturally followed the monthly burn as the price started to rise rapidly. The LUNC trading volume reportedly surged more than 700% at the time, at first triggering a 10% increase in price. By the time the weekend was over, the LUNC price had already risen more than 20%, and continues to hold on to the majority of its gains.
Former Terraform Labs CFO Han Chang-joon Extradited to South Korea by Montenegro
Han Chang-joon was charged with carrying falsified travel documents alongside Terra co-founder Do Kwon last year.
Terra Classic Community Burns A Staggering 700 Million LUNC And 230,000 USTC – Details
The Terra Classic Community recently had something to cheer about following revelations about the amount of LUNC and USTC token burns that were carried out in the past week. During that period, a significant amount of LUNC and USTC tokens are said to have been burned, something which could positively affect the crypto tokens’ prices.
The Number Of LUNC And USTC Burned
In an X (formerly Twitter) post, AlexCryptoBull, a member of the Terra community, brought to the community’s attention how 700 million LUNC and 230,000 were burned last week. Data from LUNCMetrics also confirms this development.
The Terra ecosystem has had to intensify its token burns ever since the Terra LUNA crash in a bid to revive the LUNC and USTC tokens. So far, 94.31 billion LUNC and 1.50 billion USTC tokens have been burned and wiped out from circulation since May 13, 2022, around when the LUNA crash occurred.
As part of this burn initiative, the community at one time had to vote on a proposal that, if passed, would have seen 800 million USTC tokens being burned. The proposal was, however, rejected due to legal concerns.
Meanwhile, the Terra community has also deployed other initiatives to help in the resurgence. Interestingly, the community recently voted against a proposal that seemed promising. This proposal involved the development team exploring the possibility of the Terra blockchain becoming an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible platform.
Terra, being EVM-compatible, offers numerous benefits to the network, including the possibility of LUNC and USTC surging in prices due to new money flowing into the ecosystem. However, some validators seemed to have had concerns about the funding that would have been needed to implement such a project and ultimately voted against the proposal.
Terra Community Faces Another Setback
The Terra community was recently dealt another blow following the news that Terraform Labs had filed for bankruptcy. Considering the crypto firm’s ties with the Terra ecosystem, the LUNC and UST tokens experienced notable declines following this development. This could also mark the beginning of torrid times ahead for the community in their efforts to revive both tokens.
Specifically, there could be potential LUNC and USTC selloffs from the crypto firm as part of the bankruptcy proceeding, something which will no doubt trigger a decline in their price. The Terra community has already had to deal with legal troubles, which Terraform Labs is currently facing, with the court ruling that LUNA and TerraUSD were unregistered securities.
At the time of writing, LUNC and USTC are trading at around $0.0001042 and $0.02536, respectively, both down over 5% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
SEC asks court to consider Terraform Labs ruling in Binance case
The commission argued a summary judgment in its favor against Terra provided “further grounds” on which a judge could consider denying a motion to dismiss from Binance.
Crypto Veterans Team Up With New Proposal To Send LUNC And USTC To $1
The LUNC community has received a proposal from Genuine Labs, a group of experienced developers who aim to contribute to the Terra Classic ecosystem, something that could help revive the USTC and LUNC tokens.
What The Latest LUNC Proposal Is About
According to the proposal titled ‘Genuine Labs Terra Classic Development Proposal,’ the developers who boast extensive experience in Cosmos stacks aim to work with L1 teams to improve the IBC Hooks and Packet Forward Middleware (PFM) features. They will also enhance the “end-to-end testing and interchain testing for the fee tax charging mechanism.”
These plans, if implemented, apparently come with a lot of benefits for the Terra Classic ecosystem. For one, the IBC Hooks is said to be capable of enhancing liquidity and cross-chain DeFi applications. IBC-hook token transfers will also help facilitate direct dApp interaction. Meanwhile, the PFM will enable multi-hop transfers and robust interchain applications.
Improving and integrating testing mechanisms also comes with its benefits. This will ensure that the tax mechanism is efficient and reliable and developers will be able to simulate real-world scenarios for thorough testing. Lastly, implementing this will also help accelerate development in the Terra Classic ecosystem.
If the proposal gets approved, Genuine Labs will carry out these plans in two phases. The developers also mentioned that implementation will last for for six weeks and will cost $16,000. So far, most validators seem to be in support of the proposal, as 57.32% of the total votes cast have voted in support of it.
The quorum is, however, yet to be met as just over 8% of those meant to vote have actually voted. Voting for the proposal will end on December 30. Therefore, there is still enough time for the proposal to scale through.
Update On The Plan To Burn 800 Million USTC
Bitcoinist had previously reported the LUNC community’s proposal to burn 800 million USTC from the Luna Classic treasury. Voting on the proposal had begun, and then, it looked more likely than not that the proposal was going to scale through. However, things have taken a drastic turn since then.
Data from the voting forum shows that more validators have voted against the proposal since then. In fact, some of these validators have gone as far as voting against the proposal with their veto power. This is significant as the veto votes currently stand at 24.55% of the total votes cast so far, and the veto threshold is 33.40%.
Validators seem to be against this move due to the legal repercussions. This proposal was said to have legally absolved them, but they might still not think so and are choosing to be cautious. Voting ends on December 27, and it will be interesting to see how that plays out.
Terra Classic Validator Presents ‘Legally Absolved Route’ To Burn 800 Million USTC
Back in August 2023, the Terra Classic community passed a proposal that would see 800 million USTC incinerated. This move came about as the community worked to help the token recover and be re-pegged back to the US dollar. Naturally, the proposal passed and the community prepared for the massive burn. That is until the plan hit a snag.
Terra Classic Validators Worried About Code Changes
The 800 million USTC mentioned in the proposal to be burned are the tokens held in the community treasury and managed by Risk Harbor. After the proposal was passed, the community turned toward carrying out the burn, until validators raised an issue with the plan.
According to Risk Harbor, they no longer had the keys to the wallet which happens to be a multi-sig wallet. So by default, these USTC coins are no longer accessible. But to burn the token, validators would be required to update the codes on their nodes and the legalities around this move have been questioned.
As a result of this, validators have begun to vote no to carrying out the burn, citing these legal issues. This is derailing the massive burn which is expected to reduce the token supply by around 8% in a single go.
In response to this, a Terra Classic validator known as Lunanauts has proposed what they say is a “legally absolved route” to completing the burn. Basically, Lunanauts has devised a way in which validators would not have to update the codes on their nodes and thus, avoid any legal issues.
Legal Way To Burn 800 Million USTC
In a proposal made on the Terra Classic community forum titled “Burn of 800m USTC Funds – legally absolved route,” Lunanauts suggests using a smart contract to actually burn the tokens. The objective of the proposal, Lunanauts explained, is to still carry out the burn but eliminate legal repercussions for validators.
The process would involve creating a smart contract carrying a “sole MsgSend to transfer all holdings to Anxu.” Once this is done, the multis contract can then be transferred via governance to the code id create. So there is no need for any code changes by validators. As Lunanauts explains, “The proposed method achieves the same effect as (proposal 11913) without requiring validator installations.”
Lunanauts’s ‘solution’ comes hot on the heels of Proposal 11832 which has taken another route to address validators’ legal concerns. The proposal wants to blacklist the multisig wallet holding the 800 million USTC instead, making it impossible to transfer tokens from that wallet.
The two proposals are currently going head to head. As always, token holders are able to vote on the proposal they want to support. Once voting ends, whatever proposal passes will determine what happens to the 800 million USTC in the community wallet.
Nevertheless, all of this is being done with the endgame of re-pegging USTC to the US dollar. The token is still trading about 96% below its peg with a 9.78 billion total supply.
Terra co-founder Do Kwon will stay in Montenegro until February: Report
The Terraform Labs co-founder had been awaiting extradition to either the U.S. or South Korea after serving a prison sentence in Montenegro for using falsified travel documents.
Terra co-founder Do Kwon will stay in Montenegro until February: Report
The Terraform Labs co-founder had been awaiting extradition to either the U.S. or South Korea after serving a prison sentence in Montenegro for using falsified travel documents.
CZ must stay, Do Kwon to be extradited: Law Decoded
A Seattle district court ruled out CZ’s departure to the UAE, and the Montenegrin justice minister plans to grant the United States request for Do Kwon’s extradition.
Montenegrin official plans to extradite Do Kwon to the United States: Report
The Terraform Labs co-founder had been awaiting extradition to either the United States or South Korea after being arrested and charged in Montenegro.
