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The world of Terra USD sister token LUNA came crashing down like a frenzy in just less than two weeks of May that sent shivers to the entire crypto market and it continues to caution trading in cryptocurrencies. The so-called stable coin, LUNA has now crashed to even zero, wiping out many investors' wealth. Among these is also crypto exchange Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as "CZ".
Zhao has lost breathtakingly more than a billion due to LUNA's collapse. The Binance founder has even tweeted about the loss, calling himself 'poor again'.
He tweeted an article written by Fortune with the caption 'Poor again'.
He further went on to reveal how from $1.6 billion worth of investment in LUNA, his wealth went on to erase frantically to the point it is now merely below $2,500.
During the year 2018, Binance received 15 million tokens of LUNA for its investment of $3 million into the Terra network. At its peak in April this year, the investment in stable coins reached a whopping $1.6 billion. However, Zhao did not sell any of LUNA and when the stable coin crashed to zero limits - the tokens are not even worth $2,200.
On Binance, Terra LUNA trades at $0.0001416 down by 18.6% currently. Taking into consideration the Binance holding of 15 million LUNA tokens and the current market price - the holding is now valued at around $2,124 (15 million x $0.0001416).
Zhao tweeted saying, "Binance received 15,000,000 LUNA (at peak worth $1.6 billion USD, now not much) as part of the original ($3m) investment 560x return at peak. It still sits on the address we received at. Never moved or sold."
Data on Binance showed that Terra LUNA has slipped by 99.15% in the past seven days. It has a popularity of #213 with a market cap of $924.99 million.
LUNA was in its prime days in the first week of April. It even touched a new all-time high of $119.18 on April 5 before correcting ballistically.
Its sibling TERRA UST isn't doing any better either. Terra USD today dived by nearly 20% and is breathing below the 10 cents mark on exchanges. In the last seven days, the stablecoin nosedived by more than 78%.
As per the CoinMarketCap website, LUNA token and UST are mutually dependent, as the success of the Terra ecosystem is a function of the adoption of UST as a stablecoin. LUNA backs UST and is burned when demand for UST rises. Following upgrades like Columbus-5, the supply of LUNA could become highly deflationary in the long run.
Further, the website shows that on the flip side, the value of LUNA can also decrease if UST is perceived as unstable. UST briefly lost its peg following the Wormhole hack, leading to a drastic price crash for LUNA.
Terra LUNA which is a blockchain protocol using fiat-pegged stablecoins, was founded in January 2018 by Daniel Shin and Do Kwon. Before hitting the market for public trading, the token was first made available in a private token sale for initial investors in August 2018, and it raised a massive $32 million from investors such as Binance, OKEx, and Huobi.
Zhao is the founder of Binance which has emerged as the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of volumes. At present, Binance's average daily volumes stand at 2 billion with more than 14 lakh transactions per second. It gives 24X7 hours of support for trading in cryptocurrency.
Zhao still is a billionaire though despite losing hefty from the LUNA crash. As per Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Zhao's net wealth stands at $14.8 billion as of 19th May 2022, holding 114th rank in the richest list. However, the index also reveals that Zhao lost a whopping $81 billion year-to-date.
