• Terra has announced the launch of Columbus-5, the mainnet upgrade of the Terra ecosystem
• The mainnet upgrade is expected to revolutionize the Terra ecosystem and usher it into a new age of mass adoption
• Before the mainnet launch, Terra announced they were going live on Wormhole to support cross-messaging between Terra, Solana, BSC and Ethereum
• Skyrocketing by more than 18% in the last 24 hours, Terra (LUNA) has set a new all-time high of $23.83

Terra is a protocol for creating cryptocurrencies with stable prices. LUNA, the native token of the Terra ecosystem, has spiked by more than 2,000% since the start of this year, making it one of the biggest gainers of 2021. How has Terra fared in recent times?

Terra (LUNA) Recent Developments

The activity around the Terra ecosystem has been on a high as the network awaits its mainnet launch. Terra entered August with a collaboration between Anchor Protocol & Lido to launch bETH (bonded Ethereum; wrapped stETH )on Terra.

On the 9th of August, Terra announced Wormhole V2 for the network, supporting cross-messaging for Terra, Solana, BSC and Ethereum. Two days later Coinbase Pro announced the listing of the Terra stablecoin, UST and Wrapped Luna – WLUNA. 

Future Events

The most anticipated event in the Terra community is the Columbus-5 launch. Columbus-5 will be for the Terra Network what the London Hardfork and EIP-1559 were to Ethereum.

Columbus-5 or the mainnet upgrade of the Terra ecosystem will be the most important upgrade on the Terra blockchain. With it, the Terra ecosystem will be looking to get mass adoption like never before.

With the MainNet upgrade, Terra will be looking to simplify the tokenomics of its ecosystem. Swapping will also become quicker and more seamless on the network. It will also come with the Inter Blockchain Communication protocol (IBC), supporting interchain assets such as Solana, Polkadot, and Cosmos.

Staking rewards are also expected to grow on the network after its launch. While there is no date for the launch yet, the Terra team has announced that it has reached “advanced testnet phases and is waiting on Cosmos SDK v0.43” in order to finally launch in Q3 or Q4 this year.

Price Update

It has been an amazing week for Terra (LUNA) in the market, spiking by more than 41% in the last 7 days. The rally has seen LUNA set a new all-time high of $23.83 after jumping by more than 18% in 24 hours.

Source – CoinMarketCap

A brief correction, which is not unusual after a sharp rise, has sent the price of LUNA down to $21.72, although the coin is still up by 13% in the last 24 hours. Terra is now ranked as the 20th largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $8.95 billion.

On The Flipside

• The daily trade volumes of LUNA have seen an unprecedented rise along with the price of the coin
• Despite the DeFi hacks (Poly Network and DAO Maker) of last week, the daily trade volume of LUNA rose by 255% on Monday 16th of August
• While $470.7 million worth of LUNA tokens were traded on the 15th, $1.43 billion in LUNA coins were traded on the 16th of August

Community

Terra has not only a large community base but one of the most active ones in the crypto space. The community members of the Terra ecosystem refer to themselves as LUNAtics.

The community is actively involved in the governance of the project through staking. Terra announced that 75% of its circulating supply, 312m out of 414m LUNA tokens, were being staked.

Why You Should Care?

Terra (LUNA) is definitely a crypto project worth watching, growing by over 2,000% since the start of this year, making it one of the biggest gainers of 2021