An Ethereum (ETH) rival is making a big splash after printing massive gains this year and cracking the list of the ten largest crypto assets by market cap.
Terra (LUNA) is a network of several fiat-pegged stablecoins used for e-commerce payments and decentralized finance (DeFi) services.
The network’s reserve currency LUNA underpins the price of the stablecoins and can be used for payments, investments and savings.
LUNA is up big this year, opening 2021 at $0.65 and hitting an all-time high of $78.37 on December 4th to represent gains of more than 11,956%. With Terra’s stellar performance this year, the Ethereum challenger has usurped meme crypto Dogecoin (DOGE) and is now the 10th-largest crypto asset with a market cap of $25.70 billion.
The coin’s ascent in valuation comes on the heels of its parabolic growth in terms of total value locked (TVL) on-chain. Blockchain insights platform DeFiLlama shows that Terra’s TVL climbed from $53.15 million at the start of the year to $13.32 billion at time of writing, marking a staggering rise of nearly 25,000% in less than 12 months.
When it comes to TVL, Terra is the third-largest blockchain behind Ethereum’s $169.47 billion and Binance Smart Chain’s $16.88 billion.
Pseudonymous crypto trader and Coin Bureau host Guy says that demand for stablecoins on Terra’s platform is the primary catalyst of the crypto asset’s recent climb in value in addition to its latest protocol upgrade.
“These dynamics have sent LUNA to the moon.
And though it saw a small correction over the weekend, if LUNA can crawl back to the $75 mark in the coming days, a $90 LUNA will come soon.”
At time of writing, Terra is exchanging hands at $67.33, up nearly 4% in the last 24 hours.
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