How Terra Changed My Life
The Trigger to Crypto: Robinhood Trading Ban — Realising the world is a sham
We all know by now, hedge funds held huge short-selling positions on stocks like GameStop (GME), believing them to be dying and attempting to drive down stock price further. These shorted stocks took the world by storm, as people became aware that by buying up the remaining 20% GME shares, we can cause a Short Squeeze as funds have to buy back GME shares eventually, further pushing the prices up further increased.
In my passion, I bought GME shares in Jan 2021 (Damn, I should have found out about this squeeze and bought earlier) as Gamestop became known to the retail world. I further went on to buy other Squeeze candidates following WallStreetBets like Blackberry and Nokia.
What happened next was horrendous, horrifying and horrible.
On 28 Jan, Robinhood suddenly banned the buying of AMC, GME and many other stocks. Selling is possible but buying is not. Being only able to sell, but not able to buy, what do you think happened to the share price. Of course, share prices plummeted and I lost $50K!
This further enraged as me as Robinhood was supposed to rob the rich to give to the poor. Just when retail was finally able to have a shot to win some money against the institutions, Robinhood stopped it. By the next day, many other brokers followed suit and stopped people to buy on their platforms which seemed like a coordinated attack.
Entering the world of Crypto — Down the Rabbit Hole
I was disillusioned by the system, as it became blatant that the rich and powerful are manipulating everything. When they are losing the game, they change the rules! Isn’t that cheating? The only way is to get out of the system. How then do I get out of the system? Crypto seems to be the answer as it’s much harder to regulate.
My brother CJ has been in Crypto for years now. I approached him seriously now and told him due to this Robinhood incident there is going to be a massive shift of Retail investors to Crypto. The incident pissed off many retail investors and they will turn to Crypto as the answer. I was asking him what will be good crypto to buy and he introduced me the world of Decentralised Finance, which completely blew me away.
Discovering Terra
I also asked him what he thought was undervalued and he mentioned Terra, reckoning that the Mirror Platform recently launched, that allowed people to trade synthetic stocks on the blockchain. Compared to Synthetix (SNX), he found the MIR platform much more user-friendly and with stocks you could actually buy. I took a look at Synthetix and couldn’t figure out how to buy stocks on it, and took an instant liking to Mirror.
I got really excited and started researching more into Decentralised Finance. The most amazing thing I found was that you could provide liquidity and get paid doing so, regardless of whether the stock price even moved! As long as the stock price didn’t fall, profits was guaranteed. I started buying some $MIR as this was revolutionary and I knew MIR was going to be fantastic.
Soon, I slowly shifted out my remaining funds into Crypto as this meant that I could be in Crypto and also limit my exposure to the volatility of Crypto though Mirror and Anchor.
Falling in love with the Terra Network
I started to research more into the Terra network. I read the Terra whitepaper, joined the Telegram groups and became more enamoured with Terra as a rising network. The complexity of the mechanisms used to ensure that UST remains pegged was sophisticated and I knew Terra was serious in building a strong network and the best decentralised stablecoin there can be.
Even the naming of the tokens, Terra = Earth and Luna = moon was a stroke of genius, with Mirror being able to mirror real-world asset prices.
With real-world adoption through payments done on Chaipay, I see Terra aiming to bridge the Blockchain and the real world! Such powerful vision with strong execution meant that Terra is surely undervalued. Never regretted buying some LUNA at $2+.
Eventually, I made back the $50K I lost from the Robinhood ban all thanks to my bro for introducing me to Terra and the visionary Terra team constantly #buidling DApps and community managers on Telegram who constantly engage and reply to the many questions I had. I became a #LUNAtic. I will continue to hold LUNA.Why do I love Terra though?
1. Built on strong foundations — UST Stablecoin
Terra understands the key to mass adoption is not through volatile cryptocurrencies but through the stablecoin. Terra spent massive effort building real-use cases around it’s stablecoin! Terra is now the №1 decentralised stablecoin and the world’s only truly decentralised stablecoin . With USDC and USDT under flak for not being 1:1 backed by cash, I reckon more people will turn to UST.
2. Security
Terra is also one of the very few networks I know so far that did not get hacked or exploited or flash-loaned. Security is highly valued and important and the team won’t rush into deploying a dApp, ensuring the code is tested rigorously before launch.
3. Terra Ecosystem
Starting with strong foundations built around the core Apps of:
Mirror — providing investments
Anchor — providing 20% savings interest
The focus of Terra is on building real-world use cases, not just farming for the sake of farming. These 2 core apps generated a lot of interest for developers to build on Terra, creating a vast ecosystem I’m looking forward to.
Among the many dApps being developed on Terra , many are new concepts and not just a copycat of other networks.
What’s really exciting to me is the upcoming e-commerce payments integration on Kado, where you can use $UST to buy directly on Amazon.
With Payments, Savings, investments, ETFs, insurance and more, this is looking like a financial system where blockchain meets the real world.
Inspired to give back, we started a Youtube Channel
Having been exposed to TeFi, I realise that >95% of the world do not have good understanding of Decentralised Finance, thinking that Crypto is all about Bitcoin and Ethereum. Inspired to share the truth about Crypto, my brother & I started a Youtube channel: FishMarketAcademy, to teach poeople how to fish for gains and provide Fresh insights in the markets and educate people that Crypto need not be volatile and risky, bringing value with fundamental analysis on tokens to see if they are over or undervalued.
Somehow, we found ourselves talking about Terra most of the time even though we had no intention to be a Terra Channel. We must be #LUNAtics! Enjoy as we fish out content weekly on our Youtube channel.
Conclusion
Learning about TeFi (Terra Finance) has changed my life. With so many developments happening weekly, I’m excited for Terra! With the stars shining bright, I will continue to hold Luna to the moon. Exhilarated and looking forward to Terra changing my family’s life for the better.
Resources
If you wish to find out more, here’s some great resources to get started:
https://defisteps.com/
https://twitter.com/TerraBitesPod
https://twitter.com/LearnTerra
Join the Telegram Communities as well:
https://t.me/mirror_protocol
https://t.me/anchor_official
https://t.me/LUNAtics100x