LUNA, the native token of Terra’s smart contract-enabled blockchain, has surged about 100% in price in the past seven days, making it the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market value.
It has done so by flipping Cardano’s ADA and Solana’s SOL, both of which have been unable to keep up with their fellow “Ethereum killer.” As the crypto market recovers from the collapse induced by concerns of Russian soldiers invading Ukraine, ADA and SOL prices have also increased by 30% in the last week.
Terra’s market cap is already above $34.5 billion, compared to $32.46 billion for Cardano and $31.51 billion for Solana according to CoinmarketCap data at the time of writing.
Terra has been quicker to market than Solana and Cardano, bringing the core features of Ethereum—smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, and the like—on a faster, less-congested network.
Terra has also had remarkable recent success in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) market, gaining significant market share both in terms of market cap and total valued locked (TVL) as a result of Cardano’s shaky start following the smart contract launch in September and its failure to build a comparable ecosystem of decentralized applications, as well as the increased number of DDoS attacks on the Solana network.
The value of crypto assets in Terra DeFi applications, which allow users to swap assets, earn interest, and borrow funds without a third party, has reached a new high of approximately $26 billion, according to crypto analytics site DeFi Llama.
The news that LUNA Foundation Guard (LFG) had raised $1 billion to establish a Bitcoin reserve for Terra’s stablecoin UST may have helped LUNA’s recent great performance.
The price of Terra LUNA is currently $90.55 per coin, up 6% in the last 24 hours.