Terra Snapshot Expected This Week. Here’s How 'New' Luna Will Be Distributed

A snapshot of the Terra blockchain is expected to take place later this week ahead of the launch of “Terra 2.0,” a so-called revival of the Terra ecosystem following the implosion of the terraUSD (UST) algorithmic stablecoin earlier this month.

The revival plan is now moving forward after the conclusion Wednesday of a vote among network validators, with a 65% approval rate.

Investors who held over 10,000 LUNA tokens before UST’s implosion will receive the new tokens periodically, to prevent immediate selling. Over 30% of their tokens would be unlocked initially, and the remaining 70% would be released over two years. New tokens will be distributed after six months to such holders.

Wallets with more than 1 million LUNA or UST prior to UST’s depegging from the U.S. dollar would have to wait more than a year before receiving any tokens, with a four-year vesting period thereafter, according to the revival plan.

A snapshot – meaning a recording of the state of a blockchain at a specific point in time – will allow Terra to send the newly issued LUNA tokens to holders of the old LUNA. This would, in theory, allow old holders to regain some of their lost investment value while incentivizing usage of the new blockchain.

The snapshot for Terra 2.0 is expected on Thursday. “Going by block times, the post snapshot block, 7,790,000, could happen as soon as May 26, 2022, 16:20:00 UTC,” Terra developers said in a post on Tuesday.

“The supply at genesis is considerably lower than anybody is anticipating, closer to 116.7M rising to 182M after [one] year,” they added, addressing community concerns about a highly inflated luna supply.

How the snapshot plan came about

In early May, UST lost its peg with the U.S. dollar and fell to as low as 7 cents in the weeks afterward, causing prices of its related luna (LUNA) token to drop 99.7% and outflows of over $28 billion from Terra-based decentralized finance (DeFi) apps.

This led to a loss of sentiment among LUNA investors and traders, apparently even sparking public outrage in South Korea, where Terra had a huge community. Some crypto funds were hit with billions of dollars in losses.

Terra’s often-brash founder Do Kwon came up with a revival plan in the days afterward, proposing a fork of the blockchain and an airdrop to holders affected by the UST implosion.

The plan tries to make the community whole while reviving their trust in the Terra ecosystem.

A blockchain fork usually refers to the creation of a new blockchain with data from the old blockchain. While this plan may seem like a fork, Terra developers have stated that Terra 2.0 will be an entirely new project, and no data from the current chain will be carried on to the new one.

The revival plan, although passed by Terra’s network validators, was pushed live even as results from a preliminary online poll on a hard fork plan found minimal backing among community members.

Some 92% of over 6,220 voters on a previously held online poll voted against the change, with the most popular responses calling for “no fork,” as reported.

LUNA was up over 6.2% in the past 24 hours.