Last week, USTC and LUNC, tokens linked to the Terra ecosystem, surged in price and volume. According to Kaiko, a market>
Why did #Terra ecosystem tokens rally last week?
The surge in price and volume was linked to Binance listing a highly-leveraged USTC derivative and an investment of $500mn into the stablecoin.
Full analysis: https://t.co/q0M2f9MsRV pic.twitter.com/nA3L5RvSsj
— Kaiko (@KaikoData) December 8, 2023
On November 27, Binance announced it would launch a USTC Perpetual Contract with up to 50x leverage. Kaiko reported that the launch happened on the same day as a “$500 million stablecoin investment by Terra Classic Labs (TCL)”.
The source of Kaiko’s investment claim was not provided. Also on November 27th, an X user had claimed that Luna Classic Labs had invested $500,000 dollars in USTC, and was met with a robust dismissal by a validator for Luna Classic who described the claim as “fake news” fabricated by a “demagogue, liar, hoaxer and scammer”. True or false, the claim of an investment into USTC was circulated widely and likely played some role propelling the USTC daily trading volume to above $1.3 billion.
Kaiko observed large USTC buy orders four days before the listing on Binance. Two days prior to this observation Kaiko pointed out that prices had begun to increase, triggering the placement of some large sell orders. The Kaiko report also noted that the stablecoin’s market share rose from near zero to 6.5% within a few days. LUNC, the other native token from the Terra ecosystem, saw its market share rise to $380 million, reflecting a 90% rally since the beginning of November.
TradingView’s data reflects an astronomical rally in the price of USTC over the period under observation. On November 25, USTC’s price opened at $0.013389 before embarking on a rally that saw it reach $0.078060 on November 27, reflecting a 491% rally in less than two days.
It was a similar situation for LUNC, which started at $0.0.0000734 on November 25 before reaching a price of $0.0001285 on November 27, marking a 74.58% rally within those two days. LUNC’s rally continued after November 27, climbing to $0.0027978 by December 4, bringing the total rally to a 278.39% gain for the Terra ecosystem native crypto.
Both tokens have pulled back from the recent local highs, with USTC trading for $0.044388, while LUNC traded for $0.0002018 at the time of writing.
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