Terra’s supposedly “dead” cryptos are defying the bear market. The algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD Classic (USTC) has caught fire again, reclaiming over 700% value in the past couple of days in spite of the crumbling cryptocurrency market.
Both tokens are currently the largest gainers on Binance.
USTC rallies over 700% in three days
At the time of writing, USTC was trading at $0.07922 on Coinmarketcap. This represents a more than 70% increase from the previous price 24 hours ago. USTC may have de-pegged from a dollar mark, but data shows that traders’ interest in the token has been increasing in the past few days.
USTC sees a current trading volume of $372,482,567, which marks a significant 282.64% increase from the past day. The volume confirms a growing buying momentum for USTC, as evident by the price increases.
The price of USTC started rallying from $0.01115 on June 26th to as high as $0.0987 recorded earlier today, translating to a 785% increase within three days. Although the price has dropped slightly from today’s high, the market cap is currently up to $827,660,969, the 54 largest in the crypto market.
The same bullish momentum is found with Terra Classic (LUNC), but not as significant as the other. LUNC has been up over 135% since June 26th. The token is currently priced at $0.0001367, with a market cap of $899,371,481. The trading volume has also gone up over 100% in the past 24 hours.
Why is USTC pumping?
Many traders are floored with the current situation of LUNC and USTC right now but are curious to know the reasons these tokens are spiking.
There haven’t been any major development announcements with Terra Classic to have fuelled the surge. However, the momentum may have been triggered by the recent wallet activities of the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
Binance’s Terra main/withdraw wallet has been increasing significantly over the past couple of days. The wallet has received a substantial amount of LUNC and UST than sent. For instance, a total of 5.77 trillion LUNC was sent to Binance wallet as of June 22.
At the moment, the Binance wallet currently holds 2.5 trillion LUNC (about 36% of the supply) and 1.039 billion USTC (about 10% of the supply). With such a position on LUNC and USTC, Terra Classic holders speculate that Binance could be planning something.
It’s also worth noting that the Terra Classic community are progressing with the proposal to implement an extra “1.2% burn tax” on LUNC transaction. Four validators are currently supporting the testnet for the proposal and StarShip Universe announced it will accept LUNC as payment with the tax burn.
Is Do Kwon responsible for Terra mishap?
Four months ago, Terra was among the largest cryptocurrencies. However, the token crashed drastically following the de-pegging of the USTC stablecoin back in May. The incident wiped out about $40 billion of investors’ money, leaving them with almost worthless tokens.
The community has been fighting back to revive the old assets. Recently, a famous international hacking group, Anonymous, threatened to expose Do Kwon, the founder of Terra, claiming he was responsible for the mishap.
Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/why-is-ustc-pumping-over-700/