Crypto not having a Lehman moment and whale buying will come, Nexo co-founder says

The TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin meltdown has caused panic among stablecoin and general crypto market investors. While the  Terra Luna Foundation has already announced a “recovery plan”, it still hasn’t impacted the UST and LUNA prices since they are still on the decline just like the general crypto market.

Do Kwon and backers of TerraUSD had previously approached Nexo asking it to support the UST stablecoin but Nexo declined. When asked why they declined during an interview with Bloomberg, the co-founder of Nexo, Antoni Trenchev said:

“There is only so much I can say about details of a rescue plan which are still ongoing and I don’t want to get intervene in any way. Wish them the best of luck. We made a decision at the board level that we didn’t think prudent to be involved in at this stage. If they come up around with another proposal that we think makes better sense we might reconsider but for the time being, we are staying on the sidelines.”

The probability of the crypto market recovering

Although the collapse of TerraUSD will most likely affect the algorithmic stablecoins and not the asset-backed stablecoins like Tether, it is being described by some as possibly the “Lehman moment” for crypto. Some crypto billionaires like S.C., Michael Novogratz, and Sam Men Freed, have lost 70%, 80%, and 90% of their wealth in the last few weeks. But when Trenchev was asked by Bloomberg’s Matt Miller whether he thinks it is a concern for the crypto industry at large, Trenchev said:

“I don’t think it is a Lehman moment. You know obviously not the prettiest episodes but we get one to two of those per year. You remember last year we had the China ban and the previous year where we had the Covid we had up to 50% declines. So this time I think what is different is that you have a limited number of sellers. What I am seeing on the Nexo platform and what we have goes up to 4 million retail users and a very sizeable institutional clientele and I don’t see them selling anyway the way they did in 2020 or 2021. I think the pressure that BTC is seeing right now it is the unwinding of the huge BTC reserves that the Terra Foundation had accumulated and this is what is putting pressure on the market. I am curious to see if $25,000 will hold. If not it might very well revisit $20,000, the previous all-time highs of 2017-2018, will run but I think by demitting at the very latest, large-scale buying will come in.”

When pressed to elaborate on when he thought the large scale buying will happen, Trenchev said:

“I think around 20… first when the swelling of this foundation starts which you know from our estimates should be near. So $25,000 per Bitcoin or $20,000 worst-case scenarios should be the turning around point.”

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Highlights May 13: Crypto market recovers, STEPN’s GMT leads the way

The crypto market as a whole is recovering with most top 100 coins in the green at the time of writing after an extended bearish trend, which saw several cryptos reach 2-year lows. 7 of the top 10 cryptos registered double-digit gains over the past 24 hours. 

This is definitely good news for investors after the broader crypto market lost as much as 16% of overall capitalization yesterday. 

Top cryptos

Bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), and Terra’s LUNA were among the major assets where investors faced losses. Earlier in the week, bitcoin fell amid inflation concerns and contagion risks from the freefall of TerraUSD (UST).

The flagship crypto dropped to as low as $24,000 yesterday morning before a slight recovery overnight. It is currently trading above $30,000 and has gained around 9% in the last 24 hours. 

Ethereum also gained around 9% in this period and was trading for just over $2,000 at the time of writing.  

The biggest top 10 gainer is Cardano, up 29%. However, its losses for the week sit at around 27%, similar to most of the other major cryptos. Outside the top 10, Polkadot led the way with 27%. 

Top movers

The vast majority of cryptos in the top 100 registered double-digit gains. Notable standouts include ApeCoin with 50%, Decentraland with 44%, Maker with 38%, Helium with 35%, Fantom with 43%, eCash with 48% and Gala, which added 58% to its value. 

STEPN’s GMT token led the way with an increase of 74%. Most stablecoins in the top 100 registered slight losses. 

UST is down 75% today. LUNA dropped out of the top 100. Although Terra halted its blockchain, leading media sources report that LUNA and UST remained available to trade on FTX, Gate.io, and a few minor exchanges as of late morning Asia time.

Trending

The biggest winner today is Sweet SOL (SSOL), which describes itself as a multilayer, hyper-deflationary token that allows passive income. SSOL has added 2,707% to its value today.  

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UST debacle pulls Terra (LUNA) from $80 to $0.024 in a week: here’s where to buy LUNA

Following the Terra’s TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin misfortunes after it de-pegged from the US Dollar, the price of LUNA, which is Terra’s native token, has crashed from above $80 to about $0.023. The fiasco surrounding the UST has sent shock waves across the entire crypto market and specifically the algorithmic stablecoins.

Following the UST de-pegging, the co-founder of Terraform Labs, Do Kwon, announced a “recovery plan” in a series of tweets, saying the company would seek additional outside funding and “rebuild” TerraUSD so that it is collateralized.

Today, in the evening, the Terra blockchain was officially halted at a block height of 7603700 to prevent governance attacks following severe LUNA token inflation and a significantly reduced cost of attack.

To help investors and traders who want to take advantage of the current Terra (LUNA) dip by purchasing it at its current low price, Coinjournal has created a brief article to help with identifying the best places to buy it.

To find out more, please continue reading.

Best places to buy Terra (LUNA)

eToro

eToro is one of the world’s leading multi-asset trading platforms offering some of the lowest commission and fee rates in the industry. It’s social copy trading features make it a great choice for those getting started.

Buy LUNA with eToro today

Bitpanda

BitPanda is a Bitcoin broker based in Austria. It offers a wide range of payment methods and has good prices.

Buy LUNA with Bitpanda today

What is LUNA?

LUNA is the native cryptocurrency of the Terra blockchain.

The Terra blockchain uses fiat-pegged stablecoins to power a stable global payment system. In a nutshell, Terra leverages the stability of Fiat currencies and the decentralized nature of Bitcoin (BTC) to offer fast affordable settlements using stablecoins.

Besides its recently released native stablecoin, TerraUSD (UST), a number of other stablecoins pegged on the US Dollar, the South Korean Won, the Mongolian tugrik, and the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights basket of currencies have been developed and deployed using Terra blockchain

Besides LUNA being used as a stabilizer of the various stablecoins developed via Terra, LUNA holders can also vote on Terra governance proposals.

Should I buy the LUNA coin today?

If you are looking for a cryptocurrency that has taken a massive dive over the past few days, then LUNA could be a good choice.

Despite the coin offering a great opportunity if it recovers, it is still not clear how far the price of LUNA will go. The coin has been dropping by almost 100% every day in the past four days.

LUNA price prediction

There are fears that the price of LUNA could slide below $0.01 before attempting a comeback, which would require a lot of work from the team behind the project as they actualize the proposed “recovery plan.”

Terra social media coverage 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post UST debacle pulls Terra (LUNA) from $80 to $0.024 in a week: here’s where to buy LUNA appeared first on Coin Journal.

Fantasy NFT trading platform Sorare Partners With Major League Baseball

Sorare, a fantasy football game that allows players to trade, sell, buy, and manage their virtual team with digital player cards, has announced that it has partnered with Major League Baseball (MLB). 

Sorare platform is one of the largest fantasy NFT platforms and it was valued at $4.3 billion last year.

MLB will allow its players to work together with Sorare to launch the first MLB NFT game (free-to-earn) that is expected to be released this summer.

NFT Baseball game to offer more exclusive features

As the official MLB partner, the Sorare platform will enable its fans to share and celebrate their passion through gaming. This will be the first gaming venture that Sorare has ever had beyond football.

Sorare co-founder and chief executive officer, Nicolas Julia, said:

‘’MLB has been at the forefront of interactive games for decades, while baseball has some of the oldest and most established forms of sports memorabilia. Today, as digital engagement and technology evolves for a new generation, our partnership will help a new and broader fanbase to connect with America’s pastime…The connection between Americans and baseball is enduring. And baseball has always been on the cutting edge of new technologies and innovations, so we’re proud that MLB and the MLBPA have chosen Sorare to deliver an NFT MLB Game to fans globally.”

The MLB game will allow their fans to create the best NFT teams that represent Major League players and connect with clubs, athletes, and leagues in a live Baseball game experience.

Besides, Sorare has been making progressive moves from the beginning developing some experiences that go beyond the collection of NFTs. Sorare has also been developing these experiences by combining the digital assets with free-to-play games so that the fans can be able to manage their favorite players as well as win weekly rewards and unlock utility for NFTs.

Involving the fans

With the new Baseball NFT game, there is a great opportunity for the league to attract new fans across the world as well as introduce the existing baseball fans to the other group of 1.8 million registered Sorare users across 185 countries.

Commissioner of Baseball, Robert D. Manfred Jr, said:

“The connections we build with our fans are vital and Sorare understands the importance of that bond.” 

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Terra blockchain restarts after a brief halt

Validators had halted the blockchain to prevent governance attacks as LUNA price moved towards zero.

Terra validators on Thursday moved to halt the blockchain as they looked to prevent any possible governance attacks, the Terra Twitter account noted.

Per the platform, the network was “officially halted at a block height of 7603700” with validatoes electing to take the step “following severe $LUNA inflation and a significantly reduced cost of attack.”

The Terra blockchain has resumed block production. Delegations are disabled now that the chain is live with the new code merge. Validators, please check the Discord announcements for the latest patch notes,” Terraform Labs tweeted not long after the halt.

As it was, Terra’s depreciation had made it possibly very easy for malicious actors to attack the network.

The LUNA token price has tanked to $0.01, losing virtually 100% of its value in the past few days, with the ‘death’ of the coin coming amid a combination of a broader crypto crash and the collapse of the UST stablecoin after it lost its dollar peg.

TerraUSD (UST) is currently around $0.34 and is finding it hard to repeg even as Terraform Labs and the Luna Foundation Guard work to rescue the coin.

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