The price of Terra (TRACE) made a spike on the order book, entering the range of $26.50-27.00 before breaking down and falling to $20.49 on the first day of trading after opening at just over $25 USD in its recent IPO
What about Terra?
It is “a cryptocurrency that facilitates financial transactions around the globe.” It was originally billed as an anonymous digital currency that could be converted into cash without needing any personal information or third-party services, but critics have been quick to point out its potential for illegal activity such as drug purchases because it is untraceable.
Some in the crypto-community have criticized Terra for this, saying that this is, as usual, because “the crypto community is filled with jerks” who want to criticize everything that’s not Bitcoin.
“But hey man, at least it’s better than Earthcoin,” said one unsympathetic commenter.
In the Terra whitepaper
You can see a comparison of anonymity and privacy by pointing out that with Bitcoin everyone knows who owns which bitcoins and thus how much each one is worth. Even if someone were to spend two bitcoins to buy two pizzas with cash, they would leave a paper trail because they are often recorded on a block explorer or blockchain site.
This is not the case with Terra. While the whitepaper does describe: “Terra will be less than 100% usable as a currency right out of the gate because it is completely anonymous”, its proponents argue that this is just another advantage of using their coin.
“Pretty soon everyone will be asking how to get some TRACE. It’s…it’s TRACE-morial Day,” said one Terra enthusiast.
So what about LUNA?
LUNA is “a cryptocurrency for the people and by the people” and it also uses a blockchain to track its transactions, except that unlike Terra it is 100% traceable. LUNA thinks this gives transparency to the currency while keeping user information secure. But some critics say that this defeats the purpose of having an anonymous digital currency in the first place, which is why they believe it will fail while Terra succeeds.
No one has figured out how to explain the differences between LUNA and Terra, but it’s clear that there is a market for both coins. However, while LUNA is currently at $2.25 USD, Terra is trading at less than half of that price and an unsympathetic commenter has already said: “I bet you guys are like desperate for money to pump your coin so you’ll do ANYTHING. So go to the moon, you guys.”
“Matter of time until one of these two tokens gets bought out,” said a trader.Â
But both coins are going through their own growing pains as they try to stand out from the crowd. Terra went through its own embarrassing PR nightmare over the weekend when a corporate account was hacked and its Twitter account was used to promote the coin on behalf of it and its community. This resulted in angry claims that Terra had sold out to the corporate world, which might have been meant as a joke but somehow did not go down well with believers who thought this was a sign that the coin had betrayed its ideals for corporate greed and profit.
“I’m getting out of here,” said one commentator as he began to sell off his TRACE holdings. Other traders did the same and by Monday TRACE was trading down to $5.35 USD.
So where do you stand?
Clearly, neither coin is dead yet, but LUNA’s value might be slowly dropping while Terra is trying to find its way back up again. However, even the most die-hard fanboys are having trouble explaining exactly why they will succeed while their rivals fail. So maybe it’s not just Bitcoin that is destined to rule them all after all…
