The live price of Terra today is $1.31 USD. Terra is up 0.93% in the last 24 hours compared to $USD. Terra has a live market cap of $1,402,785,603.69 USD, and a circulating supply of 1,073,286,613 LUNA.
What Is Terra (LUNA)?
Terra is a blockchain protocol that uses stablecoins to make global payments systems more stable and affordable. Terra is a cryptocurrency that mixes the stability of fiat money with the censorship resistance of Bitcoin, making transactions faster and easier.
In January 2018, Terra began development, and its mainnet debuted in April 2019. It currently offers stablecoins linked to the US dollar, South Korean won, Mongolian tugrik, and the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket of currencies — and it plans to add more choices in the future.
LUNA is Terra’s native token. LUNA holders can use it to stabilize the price of Terra’s stablecoins. They can also submit and vote on governance proposals, which gives LUNA the functionality of a governance token.
Who Are the Founders of Terra?
Daniel Shin and Do Kwon launched Terra in January 2018. The two devised the concept of assisting more individuals engage with blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. Do Kwon became CEO of Terraform Labs, which is the firm responsible for Terra.
Shin co-founded Ticket Monster and TMON which was a major South Korean e-commerce platform. He also co-founded Fast Track Asia which helps entrepreneurs build companies.
Mr. Kwon began his career as an engineer at Microsoft and Apple before co-founding Anyfi, a firm providing decentralized wireless mesh networking solutions. He has also spent time as a software developer for both Microsoft and Apple.
What Makes Terra Unique?
Terra strives to distinguish itself by utilizing fiat-pegged stablecoins, claiming that they combine the borderless advantages of cryptocurrencies with the day-to-day price stability of fiat currencies. It maintains a one-to-one peg by employing a mechanism that adjusts stablecoin supply automatically in response to demand. It does so by paying incentives to LUNA holders who trade theirLUNA and stablecoins at fair rates, as needed, to expand or contract the steadycoin supply in line with need.
Terra has several partnerships with payment systems, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. In July 2019, Terra announced a cooperation with Chai, a South Korea-based mobile payments application, under which purchases made on e-commerce platforms using the app are handled via the Terra blockchain network. Each transaction is charged (on average) a 2% to 3% commission to the merchant.
Terra also has the support of the Terra Alliance, a group of businesses and platforms that are in favor of Terra. In February 2019, the company announced that 10 different ecommerce platforms from 10 different countries had joined the alliance. These platforms represent a user base of 45 million and a gross merchandise value of $25 billion.
Terra’s Role for UST
LUNA and UST are both important for the Terra ecosystem. The success of Terra depends on people using UST as a stablecoin. LUNA is burned when people demand more UST, and this could lead to deflation in the long run.
The value of LUNA can go down if people think that UST is not stable. This happened for a short time after the Wormhole hack when people thought that UST was not safe.
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Learn about Tether, the most popular stablecoin by market capitalization.
How Many Terra (LUNA) Coins Are There in Circulation?
There is a limit of 1 billion Terra tokens. If there are more than 1 billion tokens, some will be burned until the number goes down to 1 billion. New Terra tokens will be created as needed to keep the price of Terra stablecoins stable.
LUNA was first available for purchase in a private token sale to initial investors, which included the investment arms of major exchanges such as Binance, OKEx and Huobi. The sale concluded in August 2018, and as a result, Terra raised $32 million. Of the 385,245,974 LUNA minted for the sale, 10% was reserved for Terraform Labs, 20% for employees and project contributors, 20% for the Terra Alliance, 20% for price stability reserves, 26% for project backers and 4% for genesis liquidity.
How Is the Terra Network Secured?
The Terra blockchain is based on a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism built on Tendermint. People who own LUNA tokens can “staking” them to help verify transactions and gain rewards in this system. People may also delegate responsibility for verifying transactions to others, as well as share in any profits generated. The best practices for assisting the network’s security are also outlined in Terra.
In May 2019, CertiK completed a security audit of the Terra mainnet. It examined the economic model to test against market manipulation, the architecture, and the coding language. CertiK found that the “modeling and mathematical reasoning” of the Terra network were “considered sound.” However, it would not comment on the blockchain’s performance.
Where Can You Buy Terra (LUNA)?
LUNA is the native currency of Terra and can be exchanged against fiat currencies, stablecoins, and other cryptocurrencies on several cryptocurrency exchanges — including Huobi, Bitfinex, and Upbit.
