The collapse of Terra and Luna are part of broader market turbulence that has rattled the crypto world, even as some holders of the coins shrug at steep losses.
This was before the bottom fell out, before crypto fortunes collapsed.
This was all of five weeks ago, when Bitcoin 2022, a hype-fest of all things cryptocurrency, swaggered into Miami for fun and profit. Among the thousands who turned up there was billionaire Michael Novogratz, who bragged about a tattoo to a rapt audience. It was a wolf howling to the moon – a nod to Luna, the token behind TerraUST, a “stablecoin” that was supposedly safely pegged at $1.
That was then. Thirty-odd days later, Luna and Terra have collapsed and their very futures are in doubt. And, from Bitcoin down, a selloff in digital money appears to be accelerating, part of a broader wipeout of more than $200 billion from the cryptocurrency market.
To crypto’s doubters, this looks like a shakeout that’s long overdue, and one that mirrors the wider troubles in financial markets. With stocks down and interest rates up, weak links in crypto are giving way. In peril are parts of a vast, global ecosystem of crypto minters, promoters, traders, exchanges – players who’ve been lured, and lured others, into the crypto universe.