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Sonic unveils high-yield algorithmic stablecoin, reigniting Terra-Luna ‘PTSD’
The Sonic blockchain is working on the implementation of its yield-generating, algorithmic stablecoin despite fears over a potential collapse similar to the Terra-Luna meltdown that led to the industry’s longest crypto winter.
Algorithmic stablecoins employ code-based mechanisms to ensure their price stability, as opposed to fiat stablecoins pegged directly to the value of the underlying currency.
The Sonic blockchain is working on the implementation of an algorithmic stablecoin with up to 23% annual percentage rate (APR), according to Andre Cronje, co-founder of Sonic Labs and founder of Yearn.finance.
Cronje wrote in a March 22 X post:
“POC looks good. Yielding > 200% APR @ 10m tvl, around 23.5% APR @ 100m, steady at around 4.9% at 1bn+. Will scale up and get team for a full release.”
Source: Andre Cronje
The announcement came a day after Cronje admitted to experiencing Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related to algorithmic stablecoin due to previous cycles:
“Pretty sure our team cracked algo stable coins today, but previous cycle gave me so much PTSD not sure if we should implement.”
In May 2022, the $40 billion Terra ecosystem collapsed, erasing tens of billions of dollars of value in a matter of days. Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin, TerraUSD (UST), was yielding an over 20% annual percentage yield (APY) on Anchor Protocol.
As UST lost its dollar peg, crashing to a low of around $0.30, Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon took to X to share his rescue plan. At the same time, the value of sister token LUNA, once a top-10 crypto project by market capitalization, plunged over 98% to $0.84. For reference: LUNA was trading north of $120 in early April.
Related: Sonic TVL rises 66% to $253M since rebranding from Fantom
Sonic claims to be the world’s fastest Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chain, with a “true” 720 milliseconds (ms) finality — the assurance that a transaction is irreversible, which happens after it is added to a block on the blockchain ledger.
Sonic has garnered attention in the crypto industry since its testnet achieved a 720 ms finality on Sept. 8, 2024.
Related: FTX liquidated $1.5B in 3AC assets 2 weeks before hedge fund’s collapse
Investors are still buying collapsed LUNA token years after Terra crash
The Terra (LUNA) token is down over 98% from its all-time high of 19.54 recorded on May 28, 2022, nearly three years ago, CoinMarketCap data shows.
LUNA/USD, all-time chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Despite the collapse, the token saw over $21 million worth of trading volume over the past 24 hours, which shows that “people are still buying it even though it’s dead,” noted popular technical analyst Optimus KevTron.
The collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin issuer created shockwaves among both crypto investors and lawmakers.
To create more stability, the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) bill will prohibit the issuance of algorithmic stablecoins to avoid another collapse similar to the Terra ecosystem’s.
Magazine: ‘Hong Kong’s FTX’ victims win lawsuit, bankers bash stablecoins: Asia Express
Polymarket, the world’s largest decentralized prediction market, is under fire after a controversial outcome raised concerns over potential governance manipulation in a high-stakes political bet. A betting market on the platform asked whether US President Donald Trump would accept a rare earth mineral deal with Ukraine before April. Despite no such event occurring, the market was settled as “Yes,” triggering a backlash from users and industry observers. This may point to a “governance attack” in which a whale from the UMA Protocol “used his voting power to manipulate the oracle, allowing the market to settle false results and successfully profit,” according to crypto threat researcher Vladimir S. “The tycoon cast 5 million tokens through three accounts, accounting for 25% of the total votes. Polymarket is committed to preventing this from happening again,” he wrote in a March 26 X post. Source: Vladimir S. Polymarket employs UMA Protocol’s blockchain oracles for external data to settle market outcomes and verify real-world events. Polymarket data shows the market amassed more than $7 million in trading volume before settling on March 25. Source: Polymarket Still, not everyone agrees that it was a coordinated attack. A pseudonymous Polymarket user, Tenadome, argued that the outcome was the result of negligence. “There is no ‘tycoon’ who ‘manipulated the oracle,’ Tenadome wrote in a March 26 X post, adding: “The voters that decided this outcome are the same UMA whales who vote in every dispute, who (1) are largely affiliated with/on the UMA team and (2) do not trade on Polymarket, and they just chose to ignore the clarification to get their rewards and avoid being slashed.” Related: Polymarket whale raises Trump odds, sparking manipulation concerns Despite user frustration, Polymarket moderators said no refunds would be issued. “We are aware of the situation regarding the Ukraine Rare Earth Market. This market resolved against the expectations of our users and our clarification,” Polymarket moderator Tanner said, adding: “Unfortunately, because this wasn’t a market failure, we are not able to issue refunds.” Source: Vladimir S. Polymarket said it will build new monitoring systems to ensure this “unprecedented situation” does not occur again. Related: eToro trading platform publicly files for US IPO Prediction markets saw significant growth in the third quarter of 2024, driven by bets on the United States presidential election. Top three crypto prediction markets. Source: CoinGecko The betting volume on prediction markets rose over 565% in Q3 to reach $3.1 billion across the three largest markets, up from just $463.3 million in the second quarter. Polymarket, the most prominent such decentralized platform, dominated the market with over a 99% share as of September. Magazine: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge Bitcoin and Ethereum are poised to suffer their worst first quarter in years unless they can pull off a huge rally in the next few days. Ether (ETH) has dropped 37.98% so far over the first quarter of 2025, its worst Q1 decline since 2018, when it plunged 46.61%, according to CoinGlass data. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) is down 6.49% so far over the quarter, which is slated to end on March 31 — marking its worst Q1 performance since 2020, when it saw a 10.83% decline. Swyftx lead analyst Pav Hundal told Cointelegraph that a “vertical swing up into the end of the quarter looks unlikely.” Ether has posted an average return of 78.23% in the first quarter of every year since 2017. Source: CoinGlass Hundal said that the crypto market will be “flying a little blind” until the middle of April, when the broader market should have better clarity on US President Donald Trump’s tariff plans. “The economic data shows a global economy in decent shape,” he said. Some analysts say it may only be a matter of weeks after that before Bitcoin sees its next significant rally. Crypto commentator Colin Talks Crypto said in a March 19 X post that Bitcoin may begin its “next major blast-off” around April 30. Meanwhile, Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten said earlier this month that there’s more than a 50% chance Bitcoin will hit all-time highs before the end of June. The first quarter has historically been Ether’s strongest and Bitcoin’s second-best. Since 2017, Ether has averaged a 78.23% gain in Q1, while Bitcoin has seen an average return of 51.62% since 2013. At the time of publication, Bitcoin is trading at $87,558, while Ether is trading at $2,059, up 5.08% and 5.88% over the past 24 hours, respectively. Meanwhile, the ETH/BTC ratio — showing Ether’s relative strength to Bitcoin — is at its lowest point since May 2020, sitting at 0.2348, according to TradingView data. The ETH/BTC ratio is sitting at 0.02348 at the time of publication. Source: TradingView The rest of the crypto market has followed the downtrend of the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, with the entire crypto market capitalization declining 11.65% since Jan. 1, sitting at $2.88 trillion at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data. Related: Bitcoin price has 75% chance of hitting new highs in 2025 — Analyst While many in the crypto industry were highly optimistic going into Q1 2025 following a strong end to 2024 after Bitcoin tapped $100,000 for the first time after Trump’s November election win, unexpected macroeconomic conditions were largely to blame for the crypto market’s downturn at the beginning of February. After Bitcoin retraced below $100,000 in February, amid Trump’s imposed tariffs and uncertainty around the future of the US federal interest rate, the broader market sentiment turned fearful. The sentiment-tracking Crypto Fear & Greed Index was reading a “Neutral” score of 47 as of March 26. Magazine: What are native rollups? Full guide to Ethereum’s latest innovation This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. Web3 gaming platform Immutable says the US Securities and Exchange Commission has closed its investigation into the company, clearing it of any further action. Immutable — the firm behind the Ethereum layer-2 ImmutableX — said in a March 25 statement that the SEC shut its inquiry into the firm without finding wrongdoing and “closes the loop on the Wells notice issued by the SEC last year.” In November, Immutable said it received a Wells notice from the regulator — a letter informing that the SEC is considering an enforcement action, typically sent after it concludes there is evidence of possible securities law violations. “We are pleased the SEC has concluded its inquiry. This marks a significant milestone for the crypto industry and gaming as we advance towards a future with regulatory clarity,” Immutable president and co-founder Robbie Ferguson said in a statement. An Immutable spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the SEC sent it a letter of termination that didn’t explain why it had concluded its probe. The spokesperson said the letter was unprompted and that the SEC’s review of information Immutable had sent “appears to have resulted in them closing the investigation.” Immutable said in a November blog post that it believed the SEC was targeting the 2021 “listing and private sales” of its self-titled Immutable (IMX) token. Immutable’s X post after receiving a Wells notice in November 2024. Source: Immutable The company said it had a 10-minute call with the SEC after it had issued the notice where it alleged a 2021 Immutable blog post stating a pre-launch investment made in the IMX token at a price of $0.10, which was issued at a “$10 pre-100:1 split,” was inaccurate and implied there was no exchange of value between the parties. At the time, Immutable said it was “confident in its position” and would fight the regulator’s claims. The SEC has dropped many pending and in progress enforcement actions against crypto companies under President Donald Trump, whose administration has worked to defang the agency to make good on his promise to alleviate the crypto industry from regulatory action. Last month, the SEC stopped its investigations into non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea, trading platform Robinhood, decentralized exchange developer Uniswap Labs and crypto exchange Gemini. Related: Will new US SEC rules bring crypto companies onshore? The regulator has also dropped a slew of its high-profile lawsuits against crypto firms, including those against Ripple Labs, Coinbase and Kraken. Despite the SEC backing off from Immutable, the Manhattan-based Rosen Law Firm has cited the Wells notice in trying to spin up a securities class-action lawsuit against the firm over its IMX token offering, which Immutable’s spokesperson said it’s “not concerned about.” In its statement, Immutable said that major triple AAA gaming studios “have previously cited legal and compliance risks as key barriers to entry” into the Web3 gaming space. “However, with a clear regulatory framework on the horizon, this is expected to unlock further investment and opportunities to tokenize the now more than $100 billion market for in-game purchases,” it added. Web3 Gamer: Classic Sega, Atari and Nintendo games get crypto makeovers Arthur Hayes, Murad’s Prediction For Meme Coins, AI & DeFi Coins For 2025 Expert Sees Bitcoin Dipping To $50K While Bullish Signs Persist Aptos Leverages Chainlink To Enhance Scalability and Data Access Bitcoin Could Rally to $80,000 on the Eve of US Elections Sonic Now ‘Golden Standard’ of Layer-2s After Scaling Transactions to 16,000+ per Second, Says Andre Cronje Institutional Investors Go All In on Crypto as 57% Plan to Boost Allocations as Bull Run Heats Up, Sygnum Survey Reveals Crypto’s Big Trump Gamble Is Risky Ripple-SEC Case Ends, But These 3 Rivals Could Jump 500x
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Polymarket won’t issue a refund
US elections fuel 565% prediction markets rise
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Crypto market unlikely to flash green before end quarter
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