The Terra Luna Classic price has dipped to $0.00016810 today, marking a 1% loss in a day and also a week. LUNC is also down by 6% in a month, with the token hurt by the recent news that the SEC is charging Terraform Labs and CEO Do Kwon with running a multi-billion dollar securities fraud.
While the SEC’s action doesn’t specifically address Terra Luna Classic, LUNC may continue to be hurt by the regulator’s case in the short term. However, the cryptocurrency still looks good for the medium and long term, and has recently regained its $1 billion market cap, helped by efforts to re-peg sister stablecoin USTC and burn more LUNC.
LUNC’s indicators aren’t in a great position right now. Its relative strength index (purple) has dropped below 40 in the past few hours and looks set to fall lower, bringing its price along for the ride.
Likewise, LUNC’s 30-day moving average (red) remains below its 200-day average (blue), and could decline further before bottoming out and beginning to recover.
LUNC’s support level at the moment appears to be around $0.000166, with the coin testing this support a couple of times today. In each case, it bounced back, signaling that if it’s going to fall a little further today, it won’t be much further.
As we noted above, things aren’t looking great for LUNC at the moment, with the SEC having charged Terraform Labs and Do Kwon with securities fraud.
Today we charged Singapore-based Terraform Labs PTE Ltd and Do Hyeong Kwon with orchestrating a multi-billion-dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities.
— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) February 16, 2023
It’s not clear what kind of punishment is in store for Terraform Labs or Do Kwon if the US District Court for the Southern District of New York sides with the SEC. However, any resulting penalty will likely be steep, given the severity of the securities regulator’s allegations against the two named parties.
“As alleged in our complaint, the Terraform ecosystem was neither decentralized, nor finance. It was simply a fraud propped up by a so-called algorithmic ‘stablecoin’ – the price of which was controlled by the defendants, not any code,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
This news did knock the LUNC price when it was announced on Thursday. Nonetheless, it needs to be clear that Terraform Labs has abandoned the original Terra blockchain, which is now known as Terra Luna Classic and includes the coins LUNC and USTC.
As such, the newer blockchain Terra 2.0 — as well as its native token LUNA — will be more severely affected if the SEC wins its case. By contrast, the community-led decentralization of Terra Luna Classic will enable it to continue operating long after this case has ended.
$LUNC HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SEC CASE.
— Classy 🔮 (@ClassyCrypto_) February 17, 2023
BREAKING NEWS : We ALL own #LUNC, no 1 person owns #LUNACLASSIC entirely. pic.twitter.com/kbS768pG7t
Because of this, the market can expect the LUNC price to recover after this initial shock, with the coin having numerous fundamental reasons to expect rallies later this year.
Most notably, the now-accepted proposal to re-peg USTC is bullish for the altcoin, largely because re-pegging the stablecoin would necessitate a large-scale burn of LUNC tokens. It would also likely result in greater use of the Terra Luna Classic network and ecosystem.
The re-peg plan will mean that LUNC’s burn total, which is currently at 39.37 billion, will rise substantially in the coming months. It could eat into LUNC’s circulating supply of 5.9 trillion in a really big way, helping to boost its price in the process.
It’s also worth pointing out that Binance will resume its burn of LUNC trading fees from next month, helping to reduce the circulating supply even further. It had temporarily paused such burns, but after the introduction of a whitelist for on-chain burns (which Binance will presumably be added to), it can now recommence its program.
The $LUNC burns are heating up 🔥🔥🔥
— Asobs (@Asobs_YT) February 8, 2023
How much will @binance burn on March 1st? 🤔
Data Here: https://t.co/d2fAAbr6FV pic.twitter.com/9dawAkolk3
More generally, Terra Luna Classic community has been taking other steps to make LUNC’s native blockchain more attractive to developers and adopters. For instance, the end of the year saw the establishment of a task force aimed at boosting Terra Luna Classic development and adoption, something which help the network evolve and recover in equal measure.
Taken together, such developments highlight how, despite its troubles, Terra Luna Classic boasts a healthy community that’s determined to rebuild the platform’s network and return LUNC to its former price levels. As a result, there’s a real probability that the altcoin could recover to $0.0002 in the next few months, with a rally to $0.0003 or higher possible by the end of 2023.
And once the re-peg plan is put into action, such gains are likely to be even higher.
