Terra

Terra Money is a very interesting project and is very strong in certain areas, however there are a number of key issues that potential investors need to pay attention to. Firstly, it is still early days and there is no MVP or roadmap, and secondly, the team are not even sure which blockchain to launch host their project on and have mentioned a number of possibilities. As a result, this could be a long term project with no significant developments taking place until well into 2019. Furthermore, no hard cap has been set, and the information produced by the team has been spread out across various press releases highlighting the project’s early stage and as a result much of the information contained within this review may be subject to change.
Having said that, Terra has a strong use case, as the blockchain economy still requires reliable decentralized stable currencies, and a range of dApps and blockchain projects that operate internal marketplaces will have a need for a universally accepted stable coin. In addition, due the uncertainty surrounding Tether, the top exchanges may choose to list Terra which would result in a significant appreciation in the value of the Luna token. The fact that Binance Labs, OKEx, Huobi Capital, and Dunamu & Partners, the investment arm of UPbit operator Dunamu have all chosen to become early stage investors makes the latter point seem to be a distinct possibility.
In addition, Terraform Labs has also attracted funding from a host of blockchain funds, including Polychain Capital, FBG Capital, Hashed, 1kx, Kenetic Capital, and Arrington XRP Capital. This shows the team are building something substantial, and the core team members are solid performers, with Terra well positioned to take advantage of a powerful business network. Co-founder Daniel Shin’s Ticket Monster already has a valuation of over $1 billion, and 9 million annual customers, while the Terra Alliance generates $25 billion in annual transaction volumes and has over 40 million customers. This will allow Terra to be integrated into a network of merchants and consumers across Asia almost instantly, and the team are aiming to replicate the model that worked extremely well for payment platforms like AliPay and PayPal, which grew by adopting the existing customer bases of TaoBao and eBay respectively. As a result, Terra is a project to keep track of, and while it may be a slow burner, a sensible hard cap and reasonable metrics will make this an attractive proposition for potential investors.

Strength and Opportunities:
Having managed to raise capital from four of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, together with a system that seems to guarantee the stability of the coin, Terra proposes an attractive method not only for payment systems, but also for pushing cryptocurrencies mainstream. Moreover, the team behind the project gathers all necessary skills to make things work, throughout a clear roadmap and white paper that can be found on their webpage. Because they have such a robust backup, adoption of this coin, protocol and system could be aligned with the interests of companies that want to conduct business with cryptocurrencies worldwide, as long as they manage to keep control of the pegging system-to-fiat that Terra currently relies on.
Weaknesses and Threats:
Terra is not the only blockchain platform that aims to achieve price stability. In fact several other projects including MakerDAO and Basis have very interesting approaches to solve this incredibly difficult problem that cryptocurrency adoption faces. These projects have already achieved funding from leading Venture Capital firms and have made significant progress in the course of the last months. It remains to be seen which cryptocurrency can provide a protocol that truly guarantees price stability and at the same time will experience mainstream adoption by users and commercial platforms.
Verdict:
Because the currency is being backed up by a large array of investors, and because the team behind have proven to have the necessary skills to manage such a system, Terra makes up for a good alternative not only to invest but also to adopt through payment systems. Terra proposes an attractive solution to the way cryptocurrencies work. Nevertheless, just as with other stable coin protocols no real world proof exists so far that ensures that the price stability can be guaranteed in the case of extreme market events.