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Breaking News: FTX Recovery Trust Set To Disburse $1.6 Billion By Month-End, FTT Price Skyrockets

How Early LUNA Holders, Founders Made Off With $6B

Reynaldo Marquez
Reynaldo Marquez
3 years ago
2 mins read
NEAR NEARUSDT Terra

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The Terra (LUNA) crash will go down in crypto history as one of its most catastrophic events. Billions of people lost their life savings and investments. In the meantime, a small group of insiders benefited.

Related Reading | LUNA Classic Jumps 90% Following Support From Crypto Exchanges

According to a report from Arcane Research analyst Anders Helseth, the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem, now known as Terra Classic, operated as a long-term “pump and dump” scheme.

The analyst looked into on-chain activity to support his claims and found revealing information on the distribution of LUNC and its value inflows, how the token supply moved from one group of addresses to another, from exchange platforms from 2020 to a few days before the crash.

The analyst called the Terra Classic ecosystem the “perfect exit liquidity” for early LUNA holders. This scheme was supported by the high popularity in the Anchor Protocol, the UST (Terra Classic’s algorithmic stablecoin) and LUNA mint mechanism, and this token’s supply.

As seen below, the LUNA supply was “highly concentrated” by Terraform Labs (TFL), Terra Classic’s developing company co-founded by Do-Kwon. Excluding exchange platforms, TFL controlled over 537 million LUNA tokens as of October 3, 2020.

Terra LUNA LUNAUSDT AR 2
Source: Arcane Research

The analyst claims unidentified wallets founded by Terraform Labs, the largest LUNC holder, moved their funds to “bridges and centralized exchanges”. The funds began moving in late 2020 and “frequently” saw transactions from TFL to as many as 3,000 unidentified wallets.

A total of $6 billion in net outflows were recorded between Terraform Labs to these wallets to bridges/exchanges. As seen below, these funds were later transferred to the “others” group of wallets.

In other words, according to the analyst’s research, Terraform Labs seemed to have moved their LUNA supply to exchanges where they were bought by retail investors. The “others” wallets saw $6.5 billion in net inflows.

Terra LUNA LUNAUSDT AR3
Source: Arcane Research

Did The LUNA Crash Made Billions To Early Investors?

In theory, $6.5 billion is the profit scored by TFL and early LUNC investors, but the analyst believes the number could be much higher. The report claims the following:

Therefore, we have reason to believe that the potential for creating outside profits was larger than the $6 billion net flow that’s calculated based on the assumption that portions of the early deposits of LUNAto exchanges were not sold.

Thus, the report claims the Terra Classic ecosystem, levering the popularity and the upside volatility on the price of LUNA (LUNC), created “exit liquidity” for these investors. The analyst concluded the following on the alleged mechanism that enabled early LUNC investors to transfer value to retail investors:

By pumping the LUNA token, the burn/mint mechanism, and creating a sustained demand for the UST token through Anchor, the perfect exit liquidity for large LUNA bags was created (…). At best, the profits can be described as collateral winnings in a failed bootstrapping attempt.

Related Reading | Daily Pump & Dump | May 31, 2022 Crypto Market Report

At the time of writing, LUNA trades at $9 with a 3% loss on the 4-hour chart.

LUNA Terra
LUNA trends to the downside on the 4-hour chart. Source: LUNAUSDT Tradingview
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Reynaldo Marquez
Reynaldo Marquez

Reynaldo Marquez

A literature major, Reynaldo Márquez has been deeply immersed in the crypto industry since 2017. His journey began with translating articles for various crypto news outlets, a role he took on with zeal. In 2018, amidst a challenging market, he embraced his first writing assignment, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the nascent industry and the promise of change it bears for many people worldwide.
In March 2021, he joined the prestigious crypto news outlet NewsBTC and Bitcoinist, where he not only reported on the latest crypto news but also had the privilege of interviewing some of the industry's most influential figures. A year later, his dedication and hard work were recognized, and he was promoted to Managing Editor, a position he currently holds with pride.
He believes in honesty, good communication, hard work, and the power of cryptocurrency and its potential to transform people's lives, especially those alienated by the legacy financial system. Born in 1992 in Venezuela, Reynaldo is familiar with how governments and central banks can negatively affect people, their everyday lives, and their futures by creating inflation and erasing their hopes for a better future. Thus, like many Venezuelans, he embraced this new technology to help him and his family navigate difficult times.
In another life, Reynaldo would have pursued a career as an investigator, most likely tracking down the origins of the Cyberpunk movement with the publication of William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer.’ The intersection between fiction and reality, with the materialization of Bitcoin in 2009, would have allowed him to dive deep into the crypto sphere as something more than a financial phenomenon but also a cultural shift in society that was brewing since the XX century, and maybe even sooner, in the XIX century with the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience.’
But that’s for another life. In this one, Reynaldo has been trading to improve his trading skills. Since 2023, he has been trying to learn Python to create successful strategies and find ways to execute them. It is a difficult task, which continues to keep him busy today and will most likely continue to keep him busy in the near and long term.
In his free time, he enjoys lifting heavy objects, reading, watching movies, and listening to his favorite music. Some of his favorite authors are Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Mario Vargas Llosa, Reinaldo Arenas, Rafael Cadenas, and many others. Lately, he has been primarily interested in reading about dystopic societies, a topic that deeply resonates with the crypto industry.
Since 2023, he has lived in Spain with his wife. He loves the weather, the food, and the people and their culture. They both expect to travel much more within the country they now call home and beyond its border. He hopes to retire with his wife, maybe in a quiet place near a beach, but most likely in a city close to a library and a university with his kids and, hopefully, grandkids.

Disclaimer: The information found on NewsBTC is for educational purposes only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website entirely at your own risk.

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Reason to trust

Strict editorial policy that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality
Created by industry experts and meticulously reviewed
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