Embattled Terra founder Do Kwon has effectively lost a total of $11 million on a bet that he took against two cryptocurrency traders in March regarding the future price of LUNA.
Algod, a self-proclaimed “semi-retired degen,” picked up victory in his $1 million portion of the bet this week. He tweeted that “the bet was lost the moment it [Do Kwon] bifurcated and jettisoned.
Algod, who criticized LUNA as an “overpriced Ponzi”, was responding to a suggestion that the new LUNA could spring a surprise and rally beyond the bet’s mark price of $88, making Kwon the winner.
The duo bet on the future price of LUNA, the native token of the Terra ecosystem. They each placed $1 million in a bet in which Kwon believed LUNA would trade above $88 by March 14, 2023 – exactly one year after the day of the bet.
Terra CEO took $10 million bet
Confident that the token would not fail, the Terra CEO accepted yet another bet of $10 million with pseudonymous cryptocurrency trader Gigantic Rebirth, under the same conditions as those agreed with Algod.
In total, all parties involved agreed to transfer the equivalent of $22 million in stablecoins to an escrow wallet run by crypto influencer Jordan Fish, popularly known as Cobie, which he would send to the winner on a prorated basis. .
Do Kwon may now have lost both bets after the price of LUNA crashed to $0 in May. His latest effort to save the token – and the bet – by splitting the blockchain into a new chain called Terra 2.0 will not suffice.
According to the terms of the bet, the the parties have agreed LUNA would keep the same name and that the bet would not cover the risk of a “hard fork”. But Kwon created two separate tokens: LUNA Classic, representing the old channel and subject to betting, and LUNA for the new channel.
“[It] was agreed that changing the tokenomics would cause an instant loss for Do [Kwon]. So, new LUNA is already void from the bet,” Cobie, custodian and arbiter of the wager, explained. It is not clear whether Cobie had transferred the money to the winners.
At the time of writing, LUNA Classic was worth next to nothing at $0.00009, while New LUNA traded down 12% to $6.41 in the previous 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Both Algod and Gigantic Rebirth have been vocal critics of Terra, much to Kwon’s chagrin. Traders have now been right, with LUNA collapsing.
