Mooners and Shakers: Bitcoin, Ethereum and the Crypto Market Pump Into the Weekend; Terra LUNA back from the dead?
Bitcoin and the crypto market as a whole pumped shades of Canberra Raiders green through late Friday and into Saturday. Did Falcon have his way during the weekend’s tryline? In a way.
At the time of writing, BTC, Ethereum (ETH) and other major coins have cooled a fraction, but have maintained most of their price exuberance early into the weekend.
Terra ‘Frankenstein’ LUNA
As for Terra Luna…as much as we’ve been wanting to after the horrific crypto contagion inducing implosion in May, it’s become hard for us to ignore the ridiculous price action of late.
If you’re a keen watcher of anything other than the top 10 cryptos, you might know that LUNA has been performing something of a Frankenstein rally, rising more than 200% in the past week and close to 250% over two weeks.
But that’s not the most startling statistic. The coin (which actually trades as LUNA2 on many exchanges) was trading around $6 a little earlier in the last day, which according to Cointelegraph represents about a 17.59 MILLION% rally since it crashed to basically zero in May.
Wonder if Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz still has his massive LUNA wolf taken…
LUNA, or LUNA2, or whatever you call it these days, has actually pulled back 14% in 24 hours – basically a big red flashing warning sign to enter at your own risk. No of this is a cue to buy LUNA, LUNA2 or LUNC at this time.
Wait… is LUNA/LUNA2 the same as Terra LUNA Classic – LUNC?
No, it is not. Although LUNC has pumped and dumped and pumped periodically as well.
As Cointelegraph explains it, Terra Luna Classic (LUNC) is the original version of the Terra blockchain. Terra LUNA 2.0 is Terraform Labs’ controversial founder Do Kwon’s way of trying to revive the project and repay, through occasional airdrops, those worst affected by the original blockchain’s collapse.
So…to repeat and try to be reasonably clear on this…Terra Classic (LUNC), which is up 328% in the last month, is the original LUNA, as the name indicates. And Terra LUNA (which also trades as LUNA2) is the Terra “regeneration” token, and has been pumping like crazy since its epic low.
Another thing to note, LUNC has been pumping on the back of news that the project has passed a governance proposal that essentially tries to turn it into a deflation token, according to the following tweet from LUNC community member…
Terra Luna Classic (#LUNCH) skyrocketing >37,000% since the bottom after the Terra collapse 🤯
This comes after a proposal to implement a 1.2% token incineration tax on all transactions that would enable $LUNC to become a deflationary cryptocurrency.#LUNCH ✨ #HaileyLUNC ✨ $LUNC ✨ pic.twitter.com/oIxI7tqVkW
— Hailey LUNC ✳️ (@TheMoonHailey) 7 September 2022
Right, on to other happenings in the crypto market…
Top 10 overview
With the total crypto market cap at $1.11 trillion and up approx. 0.2% since yesterday, here is the current situation among the top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.
The last time we checked in here in this column, the entire crypto market cap was $1.03 trillion. Since then, it has found an unexpected drop of $80 billion on the sofa. Let’s hope it can actually build on that and not blow everything down the dog meme lane.
Top guns Bitcoin (Maverick?) and Ethereum (Iceman?) have been winging it in front for big crypto gains in recent days. Solana is doing well too. Is there a goose in the top 10? Hope not.
Will Bitcoin and friends end the week Stateside with another little pump to load things even more into the next seven days? Brainiac’s US ‘Crypto Quant’ analyst Benjamin Cowen seems to think it could play out that way…
#Bitcoin pump into weekly close?
— Benjamin Cowen (@intocryptoverse) 11 September 2022
That said, he also points to what could well be a rather volatile week in the Cryptoverse, as he calls it.
Ethereum’s much-touted merger into the tree-hugging proof-of-stake protocol is set to be completed this week. Around the same time as the momentous (probably) crypto event, September 13 at At 8 a.m. EST, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for August.
So we have #ETH merger and CPI this week, followed by the FOMC the following week. It should be some fun times
— Benjamin Cowen (@intocryptoverse) 11 September 2022
This will be decisive, which will have a significant impact on US central bank chief Jerome Powell’s inflation-fighting moves, and the bowel movements of the stock markets and the crypto market.
Will the data come in lower than July’s very unencouraging 8.5%, which was lower than June’s? According to Forbes, that won’t stop the Fed from raising interest rates in September by around 50 to 75 bps at its next FOMC meeting, which takes place next week.
However, if the numbers DO come in lower, it would not be unreasonable to imagine a continued stock and crypto rally in the short term this week.
Overdraft and downdraft: 11–100
With a market cap of around $8.1 billion to around $429 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour winners and losers at press time. (Statistics accurate at time of publication, based on CoinGecko.com data.)
DAILY PUMPS
• Celsius (CEL), (market value: USD 680 million) +15%
• Radix (XRD), (mc: USD 647 million) +10%
• ApeCoin (APE), (mc: USD 1.74 billion) +9%
• amp (AMP), (mc: USD 502 million) +8%
• Evmos (EVMOS), (mc: USD 794 million) +3%
DAILY SLUMPERS
• Terra (LUNA), (market cap: USD 918 million) -14%
• EOS (EOS), (mc: 1.69 billion USD) -8%
• Helium (HNT), (mc: USD 653 million) -7%
• DeFiChain (DFI), (mc: USD 569 million) -6%
• Ravencoin (RVN), (mc: USD 602 million) -6%
Around the blocks
An assortment of coincidences and relevance that stuck with us on our morning through the Crypto Twitterverse…
#Bitcoin Weekly closing update 🚨
Potential bullish trend change?! pic.twitter.com/QwqZy7ycbY
— Kevin Svenson (@KevinSvenson_) 12 September 2022
#Crypto going to explode. Literal.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) 11 September 2022
Literally, right? Okay, everybody show up.
Every dollar you can save now and invest in decent #altcoins / #crypto in the current period could be worth $50-200 per dollar in a few years.
Remind yourself of that.
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) 11 September 2022
And just to pour some cold water on any growing feelings of crypto euphoria… here is Justin Bennett…
Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Bulls have had fun, but whole #crypto the market is 5% below a massive resistance area.
Probably another push higher before the next leg down.
US inflation data on Tuesday and Wednesday, so expect volatility. $BTC $ETH pic.twitter.com/K8niV3xcE8
— Justin Bennett (@JustinBennettFX) 11 September 2022
When physics and intelligence meet… pic.twitter.com/7ds9wniKs5
— The Fig (@_TheFigen) 10 September 2022
Scammed again plebs. pic.twitter.com/XDahnid1FT
— Molls (@mollsunminding) 10 September 2022
Hey guys, I can’t wait to talk about how @krakenfx brings trust and security to web3 – come grab a coffee and join me at @AusCryptoCon Sunday 6 p.m. 945 pic.twitter.com/NIY4Rzw9pP
— Jonathan Miller (@jdesmondmiller) 11 September 2022
