Binance's LUNA Investment, Which Peaked at $1.6 Billion, Now Worth Just $3,000

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the crypto exchange made large paper gains on its investment in Luna but has now lost practically all of them. From a report: The exchange invested $3 million into the Terra ecosystem in 2018, receiving 15 million Luna tokens. At Luna's peak price, that investment was worth $1.6 billion, according to Zhao. Yet due to last week's collapse of Luna -- and its related stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) -- that investment has now plummeted in value to just $3,400. Or, in Zhao's words, "not much." Yet it's not all bad news. The exchange received around $10.3 million worth of UST in staking rewards (likely through Anchor, which offered up to 20% yield).

Re:

[MightyMartian]

Truth Social sounds like the perfect place from Cryptobro hucksters.

Re:

[SoCalChris]

It's not dead until Netcraft confirms it.

Re:Stop with the crypto shilling already

[Baconsmoke]

How is talking about crypto imploding being a shill? It's literally the opposite of that.

Re:

[NoMoreDupes]

How is talking about crypto imploding being a shill? It's literally the opposite of that.

It's the amount of shilling that's the issue, and it makes it clear that /. has a vested interest [slashdot.org] in seeing the scam succeed (for them anyways).

Re:

[smooth wombat]

When you say scam, you mean the potentially $1 billion crypto ponzi scheme [marketwatch.com] uncovered? Because clearly, a ponzi scheme is a scam and if the tax investigators are after you, things aren't looking good.

Re:

[luis_a_espinal]

How is talking about crypto imploding being a shill? It's literally the opposite of that.

It's the amount of shilling that's the issue, and it makes it clear that /. has a vested interest [slashdot.org] in seeing the scam succeed (for them anyways).

How does it make it clear, when the point of a tech news website is to publish tech news, including crypto?

You are not even trying to make a point. You just want to ramble.

Re:

[NoMoreDupes]

How does it make it clear, when the point of a tech news website is to publish tech news, including crypto?

It's pretty obvious: they (slashdot) refuse to implement a "cryptocurrency" story filter. I asked them to do it. I know others have too. And many are screaming for one in the comments too.

When a company ignores and doesn't give its users what they want, there's clearly an ulterior motive.

Re:

[UnknownSoldier]

How many fucking bullshit crypto/NFT news do we need on the front page today?

1. https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
2. https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
3. https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
4. https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

They do it on purpose because people bitch so much. I'd do the exact same thing as the editors. If people are bothering to post then they're still visiting the site.

Re:Stop with the crypto shilling already

[MightyMartian]

So perhaps the appropriate name for these "investment" instruments shouldn't be currency, but something along the lines of "Crypto Gambling Chips" or "Crypto Pyramid Tokens".

Re: Stop with the crypto shilling already

[St.Creed]

That's actually a great name: "pyramid". Has a nice ring to it and noone can say you didn't warn them.

Re:

[leonbev]

For Slashdot, cryptocurrency is the new Microsoft. They know that most of their users hate it, but will click on the stories anyway just to gloat or complain about them.

Re:

[mmell]

s/gloat or complain/gloat
FTFY

I love gloating. It means I wasn't stupid.

Re:

[OrangeTide]

I click because I've asked crypto bros to put up or shut up. Still waiting for their response.

Re: Stop with the crypto shilling already

[Åke Malmgren]

It appears then that they did, in fact, shut up.

Re:

[leonbev]

The Luna people haven't shut up, though. They're still screaming "BUY THE DIP!" on Twitter even now.

Re:Stop with the crypto shilling already

[sjames]

So it's saying Luna was eclipsed?

Re:

[Jason Earl]

Honestly, I come to /. to talk about crypto these days. Besides having $19B worth of crypto disappear over the course of a few days is pretty clearly news for nerds.

Re:

[mmell]

Well, I'll admit, I wish I'd been nerd enough to get in at the top of they pyramid and get out before the collapse. I did neither. I lost no money to this Ponzi scheme, but neither did I make any.

It's just like the ads for the Lottery say: "You can't win if you don't play." Then again, the lottery is just taxes for people who can't do math.

Re:

[smooth wombat]

Then again, the lottery is just taxes for people who can't do math.

And drinking beer is just pissing your money away.

People who (responsibly) play the lottery are no different than people who (responsibly) go out and drink every weekend. That's how they want to spend their money. At least with the lottery there is a slight chance of getting your money back.

Re:

[Heir Of The Mess]

The the value of the positive mental health effects of buying a lottery ticket shouldn't be discounted. You might be nearing the bottom mentally, but if you buy a ticket in a $100mil lottery for $5 you are less than a week away from potentially having more money than you know what to do with. And if you lose, sure you feel down for a couple of minutes, but then you just buy a ticket in the next one, and feel the positive potential again. For 5 bucks a week that's some cheap psychological treatment.

Re:

[Catvid-22]

You don't need to get in at the top. I for one got all my BTC nearly a decade ago from paid-to-click sites, mostly for fun because I had nothing better to do (long story). I just held on to the fraction I "owned" and now it's worth a couple of grand. If BTC collapses, I wouldn't have lost anything. I could still trade it though, but I don't have anything expensive in mind that's worth the hassle of opening an account at one of those crypto exchanges.

Re:

[Jason Earl]

I want to make it clear that I definitely did not get into crypto, despite the fact that I worked for a company that filled a data center with crypto mining gear 10 years ago (or so). Do I wish that I would have spent a couple hundred dollars worth of Bitcoin back when that would have bought me several entire Bitcoins? Yes, I do wish I had done that. Would I have held onto them until now? No way in Hades. By the time I had doubled my money I would have gotten out for sure.

I'm comfortable with that.

Re:

[gweihir]

Well, if it had been $19B, yes. But hot air pretending to have value losing that imaginary value is not really surprising or interesting.

Re:

[slack_justyb]

I do not disagree with you. Yeah, this is one of those, "wow are we THAT shocked?" But, estimates of how bad it is with it looking at about $1T loss [forbes.com] with who knows how many people's 401(k) tied into that. [natlawreview.com]

Pile that on top of all the other bad news in the tech sector and how tech is the second largest sector in the stock market and we get about $7T [cnn.com] that's been lost in the NASDAQ market, which is bigger than the dot-com bubble (~$4.6T) loss and the housing crisis (~$2.3T) loss combined. Now do note that's

Re:Stop with the crypto shilling already

[The Cynical Critic]

Shilling? They're writing about the things that are supposed to anchor the whole system to some semblance of sanity failing and the whole thing being at the precipice of coming apart at the seams as a result. It's basically the opposite of shilling.

This stupidity has gone on for long enough. I first read into bitcoin and blockchain after I first heard about it back in 2011 (on 4chan's /g/ of all places) and concluded that it was moronic at best and a scam at worst. It was already clear that bitcoin couldn't scale to make it usable by any significant number of people, but it was in the control of people who had significant holdings in it, and hence a vested interest in keeping it from being replaced, who ensured improved offshoots would never replace it. That's even before you remember that it's not tied to anything and hence fluctuates far too heavily for something you'd keep savings and other long term holdings. Regulating it to either something you buy and spend like ice cubes or speculate on like a stock.

However being the "new hot tech thing" and the allure of being able to make lots of money I knew it'd attract people who like to think of themselves as far smarter and savvier than they actually in droves. What I didn't expect was for them to keep attracting people for this long and for this number of people with this amount of money. Over a decade after I concluded that this is mass idiocy at best and the biggest scam in history at worst, it's about time this whole thing came apart at the seams even if some of the morons who really got into it end up losing their houses and their savings.

Re:

[gweihir]

Actually, isn't this the joke section? I mean, these crapcoins are still massively overvalued at $3000.

Everything was fine

[Grokew]

But then, the tulip bubble bursted.

Re:

[leonbev]

If I were to believe the Luna fanboys on Twitter, I should be using this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to "buy the dip" in Luna and make huge profits later.

I don't know about that. Once an investment (basically any investment) drops below a penny in value, it usually doesn't come back from that.

Re:Everything was fine

[bugs2squash]

it's not like there is a high barrier to launching a new coin with none of the baggage

Re:

[kurkosdr]

The problem with crypto is that the bubble has burst several times now, and so far it managed to always come back stronger somehow. I remember when I was in college and reading stories about Bitcoin falling below $1.So, I wouldn't be surprised if 5 years from now we are talking about crypto falling under $100.000 and how the bubble has burst, again.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Right.

Losing over 1/4 value in a month, and still showing a downward trajectory doesn't really back up your claim. But don't worry, there's still plenty of time to "buy the dip" if the dip is more or less permanent.

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

The last couple of cycles haven't really exceeded the previous. Also there's the issue that every successive bitcoin hype cycle was luring in new investors, but now that it's gone through Wall Street and a nation state or two it's a bit difficult to see where the next ones are going to come from.

Re:

[Joce640k]

Yep. Eventually the world will get wise and run out of idiots.

Then there'll be a 15 year gap while it makes some new ones and we'll repeat all over again.

Re:

[kurkosdr]

I had this exact same thought when the crash of 2018 happened (after the December 2017 highs). I said to myself "ok, the previous peaks were fueled by fresh batches of nerds finding out about Bitcoin and joining the party, but now that I've seen advertisements about it on mass transit and now that even Wall Street has taken notice, it's over". And then the damn thing rebounded again. That's why I am not ruling anything out.

smallest violin

[awwshit]

Let me play the worlds smallest violin for them...

Re:smallest violin

[MightyMartian]

I'm sorry, it just got 30% smaller!

Re:

[muh_freeze_peach]

...And it's gone.

I could be CEO

[OrangeTide]

I'm sure I could turn $3m into $3k. Maybe not with the same level of pageantry and drama, I suppose that's what really sets CEOs apart for regular people.

Re:

[UnknownSoldier]

Maybe these CEO's watched too much of Brewster's Millions [imdb.com] ? =P

Re:

[UnknownSoldier]

s/CEO's/CEOs

--
t's been XX seconds since you last successfully posted a comment Fuck off /. What's the point of having good karma if you're going to artificially throttle me?

Re:

[mmell]

Okay, Cowboy Neal, just slow down and take a deep breath . . . Ommm . . . Ommm . . . Ommm . . .

Post now. Now! NOW!

Re:

[OrangeTide]

That's a fun film. I always confuse that one with Trading Places [imdb.com]. The Duke brothers in that are how I always imaged the Koch brothers were.

Re:

[UnknownSoldier]

Indeed. RIP Richard Pryor and John Candy.

Trades Places is great too! Come to think of it Eddie Murphy definitely had some FUN movies, even if some of them were kind of dumb at times, in the 80s!

* Trading Places (1983)
* Beverly Hills Cop [imdb.com] (1984)
* The Golden Child [imdb.com] (1986)
* Beverly Hills Cop II [imdb.com] (1987)
* Coming to America [imdb.com] (1988)

Huh, for some reason I missed 48 Hours [imdb.com] (1982) and Harlem Nights [imdb.com] (1989)

You've got it all wrong

[rsilvergun]

What sets a CEO apart from us peons is the ability to lose billions of dollars while still pocketing a huge salary for themselves.

I don't know about you but if I lose a few thousand I'm looking for a new job. And it's going to be hard to find one. And I don't even get on employment let alone the golden parachute.

As the saying goes, it's good to be the king. Too bad we're all just piss boys.

Re:

[stikves]

But... can you do that while showing $1 billion gains on paper?

Re:

[MightyMartian]

Bernie Madoff certainly could.

Re:

[mmell]

And he did it without blockchains or crypto. The man was a genius! He's also a convicted felon, but hey! Nothing's perfect.

As Charrlie Stross had it, years ago...

[whitroth]

"Invest now, or you'll miss your chance to lose everything!"

Re:

[bookwormT3]

considering that a single crash took down two different currencies, it shows the importance of diversification. Remember kids, always invest in at least 4 or 5 different bubbles so that if two or three crash, you still have a chance to lose money somewhere else.