Death on Two Legs

By Keith Teare • Issue #309 • View online

Terra’s LUNA token lost 99.99% of its value in a flash and UST, its stable coin, lost close to 80%. This is not supposed to happen. The FT disclosed Tiger Global may be down $17 billion as the tech stocks collapsed. Are crypto and unicorn investing dead?

Contents

• Crypto Apocalypse
• Venture Schizophrenia
• Innovation of the Week
• Essays of the Week
• Startup of the Week
• Tweet of the Week

Editorial

Another week another meltdown. Last week’s newsletter was titled “Markets in Freefall”. This week we have gone with “Death on Two Legs”.

It seems that no asset class has gone untouched by the retrenchment in asset values. Property remains relatively unscathed and the US $ is strong despite inflation. But beyond those two, wow!

The center stage must go to UST, the stable coin (sic) that is part of the Terra blockchain and ecosystem. It is down, as I write, by 56% in a couple of days. Its low was down almost 80%.

LUNA, the token that backs it up has declined 99.99% in the same time and is now trading at just over $0.01 per LUNA. The words of the Queen song from A Night at the Opera resonate:

You suck my blood like a leech

You break the law and you breach

Screw my brain till it hurts

You’ve taken all my money, and you want more

Misguided old mule with your pigheaded rules

With your narrow-minded cronies who are fools

Of the first division

Death on two legs

You’re tearing me apart

Death on two legs

You never had a heart of your own

Killjoy, bad guy, big-talking, small fry

You’re just an old barrow boy

Have you found a new toy to replace me?

Can you face me?

But now you can kiss my ass goodbye

Feel good, are you satisfied?