LUNA surges 3x, market cap jumps 200%; is this another Terra pump-and-dump?

How to get-over your shady past?

Well, incorporate a model (2.0 version/iteration) by learning from past mistakes. That exactly what Terra’s Phoenix blockchain token LUNA did as it recorded a >200% hike. But at what cost?

Building from scratch

LUNA – the cryptocurrency behind the Terra ecosystem witnessed some unprecedented hikes as we speak. At press time, the token rose by more than 260% as it traded at the $7.06 mark on CoinMarketCap. Ergo, trying to fix those broken glasses following the twin collapse of Terra’s UST stablecoin and LUNA cryptocurrency.

Here’s a glimpse of LUNA’s rise over a week.

Source: CoinMarketCap

The total 24-hour trading volume was $1.75 billion, of which Binance accounted for 32% of the share. Bitcoin also gains 8.6% in 24 hours. In fact, the spike sent the token’s market capitalization to a shade under $1 billion, jumping to $995 million from $321 million — a 209% increase, according to the cryptocurrency data tracker CoinGecko.

Further looking at the token’s volume, CryptoCompare’s insight shed some light on this topic. Terra’s trading volume suddenly exploded from around $6 million to over $200 million over the last few hours.

Around 60% of $LUNA’s trading volume occurs on the Binance exchange, with OKX representing around 25% and Gate.io representing 5.4%.

Source: CryptoCompare

Following such high traction, LUNA’s social metrics reiterated the same trend as tweeted by LunarCrush. The social intelligence crypto platform in a 10 September tweet added:

?When #Terra $LUNA casually pumps +300% in a day, you can bet its AltRank™ goes to 1.

Wondering what's going on with $LUNA ❓

See what's trending ? https://t.co/HnloAuaJ0G pic.twitter.com/sTDQ4f2VIO

— LunarCrush (@LunarCrush) September 9, 2022

The LUNA crash from over $65 to less than $1 in May destabilized the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin ecosystem. However. Terra founder Do Kwon is adamant that the Terra ecosystem could recover. At press time, Kwon made this known by sharing a hammer with a spanner emoji on its Twitter page.

All glitter but where’s the source?

Reason to celebrate right? Well- apparently not as it left many enthusiasts/traders/analysts asking more question behind this surge’s source. A few even narrated a pump-and-dump scheme meant to take advantage of the unprecedented rise.

On social media, a popular analyst and researcher known as FatMan, was one of the first ones to censure the network. Thereby, urging investors or traders to maintain caution.

Do Kwon scammed honest, hard-working people who sought security.

They shilled you stability, they shilled you decentralization, they shilled you the future of money – but they used you as exit liquidity.

Blockchain evidence file: https://t.co/OmoVOBVDqe (big thanks to @clayop)

— FatMan (@FatManTerra) September 9, 2022

In another instance, Terraform Labs (TFL) sent 435,000 LUNA tokens received from the LUNA 2.0 airdrop to Binance for selling.  Although, Do Kwon was quick to shut the alleged speculation.