Terra freezes website amid waning interest in native coin LUNA

• Terra has frozen its website following phishing scams.
• Low interest in LUNA since its launch forced it to trade at a one-year low.

On 22 August, the Terra [LUNA] blockchain announced that it had frozen its website following phishing attacks targeting its users.

1/ Update: The terra(dot) money domains have successfully been frozen to prevent further user phishing scams, but a full resolution is still underway.

Please read the following 🧵 for more information 👇

— Terra 🌍 Powered by LUNA 🌕 (@terra_money) August 22, 2023

Realistic or not, here’s LUNA’s market cap in BTC’s terms

The network had earlier warned its users on 19 August to refrain from interacting with any site using the terra(dot)money domain until it regained access to the website. It followed up with a similar warning on 20 August, before the eventual freezing of the website on 22 August. 

While the network did not confirm when the website will be unfrozen, Terra noted:

“Our team has been working around the clock to rectify this issue, but we’ve encountered delays with some third-party responses. We appreciate your continued patience and understanding as we work to resolve this as quickly as possible.”

LUNA drops to May 2022 lows

Exchanging hands at $0.4271, LUNA currently trades at lows last seen when the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD [UST] depegged in May 2022. After peaking at an all-time high of $19.54 on 28 May 2022, LUNA has since shed 98% of its value.

In fact, it plummeted to an all-time low of $0.3801 just five days ago, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

LUNA’s On-Balance Volume (OBV) fell sharply when UST collapsed over a year ago, and has since remained flat. With a negative OBV value of -419.672 billion at press time, selling pressure significantly outweighed buying pressure.

Since the depegging event and the creation of the Terra blockchain and its native LUNA coin, key momentum indicators that track how much buying and selling has occurred have predominantly rested under their respective center lines.

This meant that LUNA’s sell-offs in the last year have mostly exceeded its accumulation. With distribution still ongoing at press time, the coin’s Relative Strength Index was in the oversold territory at 23.43, while its Money Flow Index was perched at 32.34. 

Source: LUNA/USDT on TradingView

With the coin still being trailed by negative sentiment, LUNA’s price might continue to plunge further. According to data from Santiment, since the year began, trading activity around the coin has been mostly trailed by negative market sentiment. 

Source: Santiment

Terra’s DeFi ecosystem is almost non-existent

With just nine decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols housed within it, the total value locked on Terra has dwindled since the year began. At $7.9 million at press time, this has dropped by 77% since January. 

Source: DefiLlama