The rebranded token from the collapsing Terra ecosystem has been one of the cryptocurrency market’s biggest gainers over the past 24 hours, with trading volumes surging, rising more than 74% to $0.0000072. The coin has gained over 160% in the past week.
The rally took place ahead of the December 11 sentencing of Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, who faces up to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to financial fraud charges in the United States. Traders appeared to speculate that the final ruling could bring clarity to a project that has long been mired in legal uncertainty. Most importantly, Do Kwon’s hearing brought attention to the project that had long missed it.
At the same time, technological factors are attracting attention. The rate of token burns, where tokens are permanently removed from circulation, is accelerating.
In the past week alone, 849 million LUNC were burned, with Binance burning half of its LUNC transaction fees. December’s pace has exceeded 959 million tokens burned. According to the tracking dashboard, Binance has now burned a total of 75.89 billion LUNC.
Although relatively small compared to the token’s $5.49 trillion circulating supply, the burn event has energized a community looking to revive the ecosystem after a 2022 crash that wiped out $40 billion worth of tokens.
To fuel this momentum, Binance has suspended LUNC withdrawals ahead of Terra Chain’s v2.18 upgrade scheduled for December 8. This upgrade is designed to fix interoperability bugs and improve network stability.
Despite this, the coin has remained volatile while outperforming the broader market. Judging from the performance of the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, it fell by nearly 2.3% during the same period.