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The broken dreams of Luna, the cryptocurrency that collapsed in three days: "It seemed like a safe bet"

2022-05-17T03:56:23.855Z


Tens of thousands of affected people have seen their savings disappear around the world Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, the creator of the moon, at the entity's office in Seoul, South Korea, on April 14. Woohae Cho (Bloomberg) Until just a few days ago, DS considered investing in cryptocurrencies to be one of the best decisions of his life. He had 80,000 euros on the moon, and he was doubling his earnings from the 40,000 euros he put in almost a year ago. Today, when he opens


Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, the creator of the moon, at the entity's office in Seoul, South Korea, on April 14. Woohae Cho (Bloomberg)

Until just a few days ago, DS considered investing in cryptocurrencies to be one of the best decisions of his life.

He had 80,000 euros on the moon, and he was doubling his earnings from the 40,000 euros he put in almost a year ago.

Today, when he opens the application to see how much of that he has left, the sight is bleak: four euros.

“It seemed like one of the safest bets.

Even when bitcoin was losing value, luna was hitting all-time highs.

They were going to launch many projects and they were backed by investment funds, ”says this 32-year-old Spaniard, who has seen most of his savings evaporate in just three days after the collapse of the digital currency.

Its history has similar replicas in the five continents.

Luna, created by Terraform Labs, the company of 30-year-old South Korean Do Kwon, had made a name for itself in the industry, where it was considered a success story.

“Kwon is a fucking visionary, the Elon Musk of the future”, said last week, just before his collapse, one of the young people who recently bet on this cryptocurrency.

Like him, tens of thousands of small investors around the world trusted it, which had boosted its valuation to $18 billion.

The opinion about Kwon is now very different: forums like reddit have been filled with messages where bankrupt users even mention the word suicide.

And Kwon fears for his safety: after the debacle, a stranger rang the doorbell of his house and asked his wife for him.

It is the disturbing climax to a period of excessive euphoria.

When the moon went from being worth four dollars in February 2021 to 60 in the same month of 2022, or what is the same, multiplying its value by fifteen in one year, the reaction was not to wonder if its advance had not been excessive, but to place the expectations on its ceiling higher and higher.

Few suspected that everything was about to blow up.

“I entered because it was one of the

top cryptocurrencies.

It was among the top 10 by capitalization.

He had a project that convinced me and the profitability of his

stablecoin

was brutal”, explains another young man from Madrid, under thirty, who has lost 5,000 euros.

More information

Crypto panic takes over the market after the fall of the moon: why are investors fleeing?

The

stablecoin

he refers to, UST, offered a 19.5% annual return to those who held it using the

anchor protocol,

another

instrument of the now evicted Terraform Labs. In an environment in which few banks gave more than 0% due to low interest rates, this anomaly did not attract the attention of those who benefited, blinded by the power of a new technology in the making. That would allow them to get rich.

UST's loss of parity with the dollar was what dragged down its sister currency, Luna, and generated one of the biggest earthquakes in the short history of cryptocurrencies.

But heavy losses do not always serve to deter those who suffer them.

“I still think that it can be turned around and I have not sold anything.

On the contrary, I have bought more.

When a guy goes out partying and spends 50 euros on drinks on something that affects his health, no one asks him if he thinks it's wrong to throw that money away.

At least this doesn't harm my body”, says that same young man.

Disappointment

other

lunatics

, as investors in this cryptocurrency called themselves, have completely lost faith in its resurrection, ruled out by experts.

A 41-year-old doctor, who like the rest of those affected by the crash makes it a condition to speak that his name not appear, explains that he will now limit his exposure in cryptocurrencies to the two largest, bitcoin and ethereum, somewhat safer on paper. than the thousands of small currencies that populate the crypto universe.

“The loss of money means two months of salary, about 8,000 euros, so nothing changes for me.

I am very diversified and my percentage of investment in cryptocurrencies is very low, but I think it is a blow to the future crypto adoption that is so much talked about.

For the time being I am going to stay on the sidelines and I am only going to reinvest the profits”,

Indian Yuvraj Sharma, 19, is one of the few who agrees to reveal his identity.

There is no risk that his friends and family read a Spanish newspaper, and the loss, 200 dollars, will not change his life either, although for this business student from Calcutta who occasionally works as an intern it means more money than it might seem .

“It is a lot for me because it has cost me a lot of effort to achieve it.

It's my salary for two months.

I still hope that something will be done in the face of this devastating

crash

and that I will be able to come out with at least what I invested,” he says.

The chances of that happening are nil.

The price of the moon is today at $0.0002.

His case serves to illustrate an increasingly widespread fact: young people have thrown themselves into the world of cryptocurrencies without a parachute, and only the fact that many of them do not have much wealth prevents them from losing larger amounts in an asset that they do not they always understand.

The question is whether they are here to stay and when their salaries grow so will their investments, or dreams of quick riches are just a passing trend that will fade over time.

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Source: elparis

All business articles on 2022-05-17

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