Today, the market is brighter than ever.
Bitcoin hits $100,000 – a historical milestone.
The charts are green, everyone’s talking about new targets and even crazier predictions.
Amidst the excitement, a name pops up in my head – LUNA. Not out of fear. Not to warn anyone. But simply:
The memory is still there.
Once the Beautiful Dream of DeFi
I still remember in 2021–2022, during the peak of DeFi’s rise, Terra emerged as a phenomenon. A unique ecosystem, with an algorithmic stablecoin UST, and a mint-burn token LUNA.
It sounded complex, but the mechanism was simple:
> “1 UST = 1 USD, because you can burn 1 USD of LUNA to get it.”
And just like that, UST grew.
LUNA was burned more and more, pushing its price higher.
People staked their funds on Anchor Protocol, receiving a steady 20% annual yield.
Everyone thought: "This is the crypto savings account – truly decentralized."
UST's market cap reached nearly $18 billion.
LUNA reached a high of over $119/token.
The TVL of the entire Terra ecosystem exceeded $30 billion.
People even started saying that UST would replace USDT and USDC, because “it’s more decentralized.”
Then, Everything Crashed in a Few Days
In early May 2022, a few large wallets began selling UST. The peg slipped slightly – from $1 to 0.98. No one was too worried. The system had de-pegged before and recovered.
But this time was different.
UST didn’t recover.
The panic spread. People rushed to withdraw UST from Anchor, converting it to LUNA – unknowingly triggering a deadly spiral:
> The more UST was sold, the more LUNA was minted.
The more LUNA, the lower the price.
The lower the price, the more panic, leading to more UST selling.
In exactly 5 days, the market witnessed one of the most catastrophic crashes in crypto history:
5/5/2022: LUNA ~ $86
9/5: $30
11/5: below $1
12/5: $0.0001
13/5: no exchanges listed it anymore
LUNA’s supply inflated from under 1 billion to over 6.5 trillion tokens.
UST would never recover its peg, and it sank to below $0.1, never to return to $1 again.
It disappeared into obscurity.
The Loss of Trust Was Worse Than the Money
The truth is, everyone loses money in crypto at some point. But the biggest loss with LUNA wasn’t the money.
It was the trust.
Trust in a model that seemed sustainable.
Trust in a strong, united community.
Trust in a CEO who was once so confident, proclaiming “LUNA can’t fail.”
Trust that crypto was stepping into a new era – decentralized, self-sovereign, and not reliant on anyone.
All of that crumbled in less than a week.
Some people sold early and got out.
Some people went all in and lost everything.
Some staked UST, believing they could “ride out the storm,” and watched their balances go from hundreds of thousands to a few hundred.
And Now, While Bitcoin Touches 100K…
...somewhere, someone remembers that old story.
Not to fear.
Not to doubt the present.
Simply because… that memory still lingers.
Once, it was as bright as today’s market.
Once, it was filled with hope, just like many of today’s rising projects.
Once, people truly believed:
> “UST is a stablecoin that can’t fail.”
Then, it did fail.
And that memory is still here – silently lingering, for no particular reason.
No Lesson Here
There’s no “lesson to be learned.” No “be cautious” message. No conclusion.
Simply…
If you were there – you probably understand this feeling.
And if you weren’t – that’s okay.
Just remember that:
> In crypto, the impossible is always possible – both the good and the bad.
