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- Terra (LUNA) has defied the overall market dip and has hit a new all-time high at $81 as its impressive price surge in 2021 continues.
- The project is also becoming a DeFi mainstay and has now eclipsed the Binance Smart Chain in total value locked at $17.7 billion, only second to Ethereum.
The cryptocurrency market has seen a sea of red over the past day, with Bitcoin losing 2.53 percent to trade at $46,400, Ethereum losing 3.75 percent to trade at $3,838, and Solana shedding 5.50 percent to trade at $175. However, one cryptocurrency that has defied the trend and shot to new heights is LUNA, the native cryptocurrency of the Terra blockchain. LUNA has gained 30 percent in the past week to hit a new all-time high and is now the second-largest DeFi network in the world after Ethereum.
In the past day, Terra gained 7.5 percent to trade at $78.9 at press time. In that time, it hit an intra-day high at $81.28, its all-time high price.
Its gains over the past week have pushed its total market capitalization to $2.7 billion, pushing it into the top ten where it now sits above Avalanche at ninth. Its price rise seems to have attracted a lot of investors with its volume in the past day standing at $2.8 billion. This was the eighth-highest in the market and was higher than Solana and Binance Coin.
The technicals are bullish for LUNA. It’s trading above its 21-day exponential moving average. Its relative strength index (RSI), which indicates whether an asset is overbought or oversold, is around 55, showing there’s still a lot of room for growth. If the RSI is above 70, it indicates the asset is overbought while a reading under 30 indicates its undervalued.
Related: Terra’s recent developments set LUNA on a bullish path amid wider crypto market turmoil
Terra (LUNA) overtakes Binance Smart Chain in DeFi TVL
Terra describes itself as a next-generation blockchain payment network using fiat-pegged stablecoins to power price-stable global payment systems. It launched in April 2019 and now offers stablecoins pegged to the U.S dollar, the South Korean won, the Chinese yuan, the Japanese yen, the British pound and the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket of currencies.
LUNA has seen explosive growth in 2021. It started the year trading at $0.66 and at a record price of $81, it has shot up over 22,000 percent.
But unlike cryptocurrencies like Shiba Inu which just shot up on speculation and media frenzy, Terra has seen immense growth in its ecosystem. The standout has been in DeFi where it has shot up past other networks that get a lot of attention such as the Binance Smart Chain, Solana and Avalanche.
Today, Terra is the second-largest DeFi network globally, only bested by the dominant Ethereum. As per data by DeFi Llama, Terra has $17.73 billion in total value locked (TVL). This is higher than BSC’s $16.44 billion and Solana’s $11.75 billion and three times higher than TRON, Fantom and Polygon. Ethereum at $149 billion is the runaway market leader.
The biggest DeFi platform on Terra is Anchor, a savings protocol offering low yields on Terra stablecoin deposits. Others include Lido Terraswap and Astroport, which recently locked $1 billion in its liquidity pools.
$1bn locked in ASTROPORT pools! Many people don’t understand this;
1. Finally a tier 1 AMM with incentives on $LUNA.
2.$1bn in $LUNA/related locked, most of it for a year.
3. This move paved the way for many new project launches – more UST minted!
It’s a pivot point for $LUNA
— Ran Neuner (@cryptomanran) December 19, 2021
