Macauley Peterson

<div id="highlights-block_628bbb5deeb27" class="highlights">
        <ul>
                <li>A tweet from Terra founder Do Kwon set off a community meme to “burn” LUNA</li>
                <li>The burn’s effect on the LUNA supply is negligible, and people are wasting whatever value they have left by opting out of the planned network relaunch</li>
            </ul>
    
</div>



<p>The influential founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, creator of the Terra blockchain, on Saturday engaged in a de facto Twitter question and answer session. Topics ranged from <a href="https://twitter.com/FatManTerra/status/1527986812538564608" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">whether he’s on the run</a> from tax authorities in Seoul, and why the company’s lawyers <a href="https://twitter.com/FatManTerra/status/1528004331697577986" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">have all quit</a>, to his thoughts on <a href="https://twitter.com/stablekwon/status/1528010405561237505" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the latest Terra “rebirth” proposal</a> details.</p>



<p>In the process, <a href="https://twitter.com/AntoineRoncin/status/1528003605952970753" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">one respondent inquired</a> about burning LUNA — a mechanism by which LUNA holders can effectively send their tokens into a black hole to reduce the circulating supply.</p>



<p>About 10,000 retweets and quote tweets later, and 280.67 million LUNA, across some 2,500 transactions has been sent into oblivion — worth about $52,000, as of Monday at 12:30 pm ET.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s a drop in the bucket given the LUNA circulating supply of 6.5 trillion, but most participants seem to be operating under the influence of memes and wishful thinking.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Let&#39;s get this wider distribution.  People are starting to send LUNA here community style.<br><br>925k burned.<br><br>250k burned.<br><br>We can do this.</p>&mdash; Infiniatures (@infiniatures) <a href="https://twitter.com/infiniatures/status/1528022478869643265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">buy and burn huge quantities so that when a whale wants to buy it has to buy expensive and raise the price as much as possible! .</p>&mdash; kotsaridis (@kotsaridis11) <a href="https://twitter.com/kotsaridis11/status/1528285053255573506?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 22, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/RT_FklcPJDBqJzb3CButRXP5N2brQ-r0ijp_oPtXyB-UOuRFJrWwGU71SD0clWiO4HaeHPLhCk9Ki9Vet0EQt_OqOx22tPrglXw4-BLl4jWGhZpt5H9knCUdbMDH4at2PnUBw3LIzzcAdnbkKA" alt=""/><figcaption><em>Transactions of LUNA since May 21, 2022; Source: </em><a href="https://explorer.bitquery.io/terra/address/terra1sk06e3dyexuq4shw77y3dsv480xv42mq73anxu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Bitquery.io</em></a></figcaption></figure>



<p>The burning frenzy comes as LUNA’s price has increased by about 75%, trading around 0.000185 at time of writing. At its April 5, 2022, LUNA traded at $119.</p>



<p>By burning tokens, LUNA holders forfeit any eligibility for new LUNA tokens following a planned <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/terra-update/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">May 27 snapshot and launch</a> of the new network.</p>



<p>Do Kwon later attempted to clear up any confusion over the merits of the idea.</p>



<p>“To clarify, as I’ve noted multiple times, I don’t think sending tokens to this address to burn tokens is a good idea — nothing happens except that you lose your tokens,” <a href="https://twitter.com/stablekwon/status/1528565146175475713" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">he wrote</a> on Twitter.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<p><strong>Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.</strong></p>
