Terra - 8. New Year’s Resolutions
2022 was a rough year for Terra and $LUNA. So what will the future hold — and what New Year’s Resolutions could the protocol make to ensure 2023 is better than 2022? Identify at least three goals that the Terra ecosystem and community should have in the New Year, how they can achieve them, and what good fortune those changes would bring. Back up your assertions with on-chain data.
What is LUNA 2.0?
- As proposed by Kwon, the Terra blockchain underwent a hard fork, with the launch of Terra 2.0 and the old LUNA tokens being renamed as terra classic (LUNC). Kwon’s fork proposal passed with 65.5% majority approval.
- The snapshot for Terra 2.0 provided by Kwon gives an idea of how the chain upgrade would work and states that the new Terra will be created without the algorithmic stablecoin.
- The Terra Builders Alliance has provided technical details on integration, decentralized applications (dApps) migration, and a guide to rebranding the original Terra chain as ‘Terra Classic’.
- The old token was renamed terra classic (LUNC), and while the original Cosmos chain will continue to operate, the option to mint or burn coins will be disabled. The new blockchain was launched on 28 May 2022.[2]
Why Terra (LUNA) deserves a second chance
- While LUNA’s crash has significantly impacted the overall crypto industry and created worries for new entrants, we have to remember that it’s not an isolated event. Over the last few years, the crypto industry has seen its fair share of ups and downs. New tokens have emerged with glowing promise, only to fail miserably. Some due to project failures, some due to scams and rug pulls.
- One of the positives in the LUNA case was the continuous efforts and commitments of the Terra team. The team worked tirelessly to support the community in this crisis and implement a revival plan that actually separates itself from the previous mistakes. Terra’s operations are still conducted within legal parameters.
- Since 2019, LUNA’s achievement in the blockchain space has been extraordinary. The token had maintained consistent growth and correction even during the harshest of market conditions. The crypto community should value that Terra has admitted its mistakes, and the concept of Terra 2.0 shows that it has already started to move away from the previous flawed concept.
- We are not saying that LUNA 2.0 will take off, because the algorithm value proposition massively contributed to LUNA’s growth over the years, even though the same aspect caused its eventual crash. Terra 2.0 might not have a new innovative concept, but it sticks to the basic fundamentals of crypto, which is what the community truly needs right now.
- So, although it’s not financial advice, we do think that it’s worth giving Terra a second chance, considering the immense support and contribution of Terraform labs, and its commitment to the community. [1]
Overview
This analysis includes the following categories:
- LUNA Token Price
- Stake Metrics
- Development Metrics
- NFT Metrics Sale & MInt
LUNA Token Price
- The token price itself has taken quite a beating, however not a lot as compared to some other tokens
- It has fallen down only 18% since the beginning of Dec 2022 from 1.6 $USD to 1.3 $USD.
- With the recent price hike, we see Luna crossing the 2$ mark and both 7-day moving average up to 1.7 $USD and 30-day moving average up to 1.4 $USD
Methodology
For various terra metrics we look at the following terra.core
tables and from each table we deduce the required metrics.
- terra.core.ez_staking
- terra.core.ez_messages
- terra.core.fact_nft_sales
- terra.core.fact_nft_mints
For new wallets, NFT minters, NFT buyers, etc, we look at the first transaction of each wallet since the starting of Terra Chain.
- Once we have the list, we filter out based on the parameters set above.
Definitions
- Staker: Any wallet that delegates/stakes $LUNA to a validator.
- Contract: Smart contract used when the transaction is executed.
- NFT Buyer: Any wallet that buys NFT from the secondary marketplace.
- NFT Minter: Any wallet that originally mints the NFT.
NFT Mint Metrics
- Mint Metrics are another metric that should be measured.
- Terra was once a promising land of NFT landscape with a lot of popular NFTs like Luna Bulls, Galactic Punks to name a few.
- More mints means more projects are deciding to make Terra as their home.
- Mint metrics are interesting, Aug 2022 and Sep 2022 saw some spikes, 2023 hasn’t seen any.
- However the weekly number if barely even considerable around 100 mints every week.
- New minters are also far and few with around 30 new minters every week.
Development Metrics
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These metrics are very important to gauge how many developers are interested in the Terra Ecosystem.
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Terra 2.0 seems to be alive and kicking with 71 new contracts being deployed so far since start of 2023.
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On the other hand 621 new contracts were deployed in 2022 since the beginning.
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Terra should strive to see this metric grow more meaning more developers entering the Terra Ecosystem.
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Stake Metrics
- For governance and decentralization, staking $LUNA is very important and gives a certain sense of confidence in the ecosystem.
- Another important metric is how many new validators are joining the ecosystem.
- More people and more volume of $LUNA being staked, means less volume of $LUNA being sold.
- 2023 has seen only 9.6K staking transactions.
- Number of stake transactions are pretty much the same around 3000 per week.
- Number of Stakers are pretty stable as well around 2000 wallets every week.
- Number of New Swappers joining the ecosystem is interesting, we see a constant stream of around 400 new wallets staking $LUNA every week.
NFT Sale Metrics
- NFT Sale Metrics are another metric that should be measured very closely.
- Healthy metrics suggest that the secondary market is alive and kicking and a lot of users are in fact using the platform.
- Sale metrics are interesting, Sep 2022 was when we saw some spikes in secondary sales followed by Oct 2022.
- The Sale volume numbers in 2023 are vey low with total of only 11.19K $LUNA in sales in 2023, weekly sales of around 5K $LUNA currently.
- There are only 30-40 weekly active NFT buyers out of which only 10-20 are first time buyers.
Conclusion
- Development metrics look weak with a very few new contract being created in 2023.
- NFT metrics look weak as well with low number of mints and secondary sales.
- Staking and validator metrics are very weak with very less activity as well.
- Overall Terra should focus on these metrics very closely in 2023 to create a thriving ecosystem.