The relaunch of the highly controversial Luna cryptocurrency faces a rocky start after losing 75% of its value.
On May 28, Luna 2.0 tokens entered the market at 15 baht per coin and surged to over 850 baht. The unit then nosedived to 119 baht, a 75% decline on the price recorded on its relaunch day. As of May 30, the coin is stagnant at around 200 baht, according to crypto exchange Bybit.
Earlier this month, the original Luna coin witnessed a historic crash and was essentially deemed worthless as it plunged to less than a satang on May 13. It had reached an all-time high of 4,075 baht in April.
The Luna coin supposedly had a special algorithm designed by Terraform Labs to absorb the shocks generated by TerraUSD, or UST, its sister and stable coin.
TerraUSD was pegged at a 1-to-1 ratio with the US dollar, but it struggled to mirror the greenback's value in mid-May, triggering a sell-off that affected TerraUSD and Luna's values.
The fiasco caused both coins to be delisted from multiple exchanges, including Bitkub and Binance, following the incident.
Do Kwon, a Korean cryptocurrency developer and the chief executive of Terraform Labs, said he rebuilt the new Luna coin with the goal of resolving design flaws in the ecosystem. Mr Kwon used the same label while renaming the collapsed coin Terra Luna Classic (LUNC).
The new Luna was distributed to holders of former investors of LUNC and UST.
Mr Kwon's rationale for this decision was that the supply-demand ratio for the original coin was irrecoverable in its current state.
He also said that the revamped Luna has a new blockchain to distance it from UST, allowing it to switch to a new stable coin by Terraform Labs that does not depend on algorithms to hold its value.
Bitkub announced on May 27 that it would follow Mr Kwon's arrangement by airdropping (distributing the coins to the holders free of charge) the new Luna coins to the people that held the original coin in their Bitkub wallet.
Despite the revival plan, Mr Kwon remains a highly controversial figure as he berates his critics as "poor".
His company is also under attack for allegedly avoiding taxes. He denies all the alleged wrongdoings.
