𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴; 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗮; 𝗔𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗲 𝗷𝗼𝗯𝘀 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻; 𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝟭𝟬𝘆𝗿 𝟮.𝟴𝟰%; 𝗴𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗶𝗹 𝘂𝗽; 𝗡𝗭$𝟭 = 𝟲𝟰 𝗨𝗦𝗰; 𝗧𝗪𝗜-𝟱 = 𝟳𝟭

US jobless claims rose slightly last week but remained below the 200,000 level in 'actual' terms, and the total number of people on these claims dipped below 1.3 mln and another new record low.

American existing home sales fell in April, and fell more than expected and the third retreat in a row. They are now down almost -6% from the same month a year ago, and the inventory of unsold houses is rising even if it is at historically low levels. Those that are selling are in the higher price segments, so average selling prices are rising, now at US$391,200 (NZ$610,000).

US mortgage rates dipped unexpectedly last week.

The Philly Fed factory survey is still expanding, but at a sharply reduced rate. However new orders and shipments rose. But employment decreased, and the price indexes remained elevated although edged down. Their looking-ahead indexes remained positive but reflect more muted optimism for growth over the next six months.

In China, some observers are suspecting that the President Xi has been forced to share power with Premier Li as a result of a string of policy mistakes. If so, it could mark a turning point in the hardline approach Xi has been pursuing. Or it might be just wishful thinking. In any event, China seems caught out by its hubris over the past few years.

https://preview.redd.it/uaynumm7wh091.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e8adb7827982bc543831cbef56d03c73ebd8818

Although the Australian jobless rate held steady at 3.9% in April from March (NZ = 3.2%), their participation rate slipped to 66.3% (NZ = 70.1%). The total number of jobs rose by only +4000 when a +20,000 rise was expected. But more than +92,000 of that rise was full-time jobs, whereas part-time roles fell -88,000.

Over the past week there has been little change to the cost of shipping containerised freight by sea, but the cost of shipping bulk cargoes has risen.

The UST 10yr yield will start today another -5 bps lower at 2.84%. The UST 2-10 rate curve is unchanged at +24 bps but their 1-5 curve is very much flatter at +73 bps. Their 30 day-10yr curve is also flatter at +234 bps. The Australian ten year bond is now at 3.29% and down -4 bps. The China Govt ten year bond is unchanged at 2.82%. And the New Zealand Govt ten year is little-changed at 3.62%.

On Wall Street, the S&P500 is staying down after yesterday's very sharp fall, little-changed in Thursday afternoon trade. Overnight, European markets were all down about -1% except London which was down -1.8%. Yesterday, Tokyo ended down -1.9%, Hong Kong ended down -2.5% but Shanghai rose +0.4% on lockdown easing expectations. The ASX200 ended its Thursday session down -1.7% but the NZX50 ended down a much lesser -0.5%.

The price of gold is on the move today, up +US$25 since this time yesterday at US$1841/oz.

And oil prices are +US$3 higher today and now just under US$109.50/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is now just over US$110/bbl.

The Kiwi dollar will open today nearly +1c stronger against the US dollar, now at 64 USc. Against the Australian dollar we are firmish at 90.6 AUc. Against the euro we are almost unchanged at 60.4 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at 71 which is up +40 bps from this time yesterday.

The bitcoin price has risen +3.3% from this time yesterday and is now at US$29,946. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been high at +/- 3.3%.

Source: Interest .co .nz

An Alternative Revival Plan...

This is the original post that I tried to make over at r/terraluna, but it kept getting auto-removed for some reason.

Without further ado...

I've been thinking about this for a while, and even started writing this out in another post. So if this fork happens, then TFL and most of the existing dApp developers will move on, right? Couldn't the community technically modify Terra Classic however we want at that point? I mean, TerraCore is open source, right?

Again, lofty goals, but let's talk about "what-if"s for a moment. If I had unlimited time and blockchain development knowledge (not to mention my knowledge of Rust is a bit "rusty" lol), here's what I'd probably want to change:

• Remove UST immediately, and work with the remaining dApp devs to quickly remove it from their projects. Terra's a pretty robust ecosystem, so let's at least get something up and running, and revisit stablecoins in a later phase.
• Restart staking (obviously), but have the community vote on the lock-in length
• Enhance the proposal setup to include a mechanism to hook up a smart contract that would automatically start if quorum is reached. Anyone should be able to view the code of these smart contracts ahead of time to boost transparency. For example, how nice would it be to vote on whether or not to do something, then get to vote on the smart contract's parameters? Investors' trust wouldn't have to be in me so much at that point. I have no choice but to be transparent, and hopefully that helps rebuild some goodwill with stakeholders.
• Raise gas fees that'd go towards burning Luna. We'd vote on the following parameters:
  • How much should the fee hike up
  • Figure out what the burn limit should be (probably 1 billion to remind us of simpler times lol)
• I wouldn't mind bringing back Anchor Protocol, but at a sustainable rate.
• Make it a point to be professional and respectful on social media. We've had enough arrogance represent this community.
• Limit Twitter presence to just simple messages instead of these multi-part rants. We'll put important rants/plans somewhere more appropriate like this sub-Reddit or some official "Terra Classic" forums, and then link those lengthy posts in shorter social media posts to help give them visibility. The multi-part Twitter blogging is a turn-off, hard to follow, and it's easy to figure out where things begin and end.
• Leverage the investor community to write and maintain investor documentation, then create ways of empowering newer investors to learn this. We've had tons of amazing guides on the Terra ecosystem. Wouldn't it be nice if all the people who put their time and effort into those docs worked together to build it once and keep it up-to-date? Maybe we could do that, and pay them in Luna (or maybe Bitcoin while we rebuild confidence?). Terra Luna critics should also be eligible because their criticisms (not intentional FUD) be good points that we could learn from. This brings me to...
• Help inform our investors, so they can feel more confident in what we're investing in, and even give us feedback if they see vulnerabilities. Again, this is my fantasy, and in my fantasy, I'd want to build a culture around finding vulnerabilities in our concepts and coming up with solutions. I want our test-case scenarios for features that aren't released yet to get publicity and in the hands of others ahead of time to find problems. Open source is there, so let's leverage that. Giving investors every opportunity to know the risks, so they can assess, and help us find vulnerabilities/solutions.
• Another idea would be to build some sort of wallet insurance protocol similar to what the FDIC has for bank accounts in the USA. Wouldn't it be nice if your money was absolutely ensured to a certain point? There's a lot of variables there, but it's something that I'd want to explore. Especially after what's already happened to Terra.
• Here's another idea for burning Luna: maybe we start charging a fee to open official Terra Wallets? The funds from opening new wallets would be like $10 or $20 (we'd vote on whether or not to do it, and then vote on the price if we decide to do this). Those funds would immediately go into burning Luna.
• Maybe we also buy Bitcoin, but as a longer-term investment instead of a safety net. We buy Bitcoin with transaction fees over time (lots and lots of ideas on how to use those darn transaction fees...). We buy it in a deflationary way where we buy more Bitcoin in bear runs. Then, we can have votes on which price limit to sell that Bitcoin during bull runs for funds that we could use to burn Luna or build up reserves.
• Figure out a way to cut down on phishing. I've been brainstorming various half-baked ideas on basically adding a Protocols tab in TerraStation. This tab would basically look like an the App Store where each protocol/app in the list would list its name, show its logo, the name of the company its registered to, and a Connect Wallet button which would prompt you for your password to connect the wallet, but not your seed phrase. Then, TerraStation would like log you in. All kinds of dev details that I don't understand very well here, so probably not a good idea... Anyway, clicking on the app icon would just open whatever URL that's associated with that app. All apps/protocols must go through some sort of approval process like you'd expect from the Apple App Store in order to be listed here (same with URL changes). Problem is, that makes things very centralized, so maybe we have the community vote on the legitimacy of these domains/urls. Who knows. Maybe this isn't even a good idea, but here's the intent:
  • You can only connect your wallet to a protocol through the official TerraStation app now instead of individual websites.
  • Connecting your wallet would only require your password (again, there's details that I need to figure out here)
  • The community votes on whether or not that app's/protocol's URL is legit or not
  • We'd somehow want to incentivize devs to list their dApps here, so that Terra's ecosystem is entirely discoverable in one spot. Sure, the dApps are all on different domains/mobile apps, but we want a comprehensive list.
• I go back and forth on this, but maybe its in the community's best interest to vote on accepting VC money, and again, tie in directly to an open source smart-contract that anyone can view. Personally, I want to revive a multi-billion-dollar blockchain, but I do not want the power to make multi-billion-dollar decisions on a whim. That's what burned us in the past, I want transparency, trust is a luxury, and I don't want anyone to have to just "trust me bro" like in the past. That goes against DeFi... That will rebuild confidence.
• Rename "Terra Classic" to "Neo Terra" or "Gaia". They sound cooler, but I'd probably have the community vote (this isn't so different from how Apple Inc. got its name lol).

Anyway, that's a bunch of ideas for right now. We still haven't talked much about the elephant in the room: UST. Personally, I'd love to eventually bring back the concept of an algorithmic stablecoin that burns/mints Luna to maintain its peg. I know that's painful for a lot of people to hear right now after what just happened. The wounds are fresh, and I lost around $84k myself. That said, UST did drive a lot of Luna's price in the past, and it's the core feature of the Terra ecosystem that differentiates it from everything else. In fact, Terra's Luna/UST relationship was the only DeFi concept that I ever really saw real-world utility that everyone could use (whether they know it or not).

We'd probably want to rename UST to something else after the universally bad rap it's had (which may or may not have even been UST's fault given a lot of the decisions being made by TFL lately). Here are some ideas to changes that I'd make:

• Change or even remove those 24-hour Luna-minting/burning limits since that was one of the first things that screwed us. It sounds like there were good reasons why these limits existed to begin with, so I'd need to really understand those reasons before deciding to remove that limit. We could discuss alternatives there too.
• Maybe add some sort of lock on UST trading (or at least UST minting) in cases of black-swan events as a last measure. We'd want to and clearly market this. This is especially important early-on into the stablecoin's development. We could eventually lessen the lock threshold or totally remove it once the community feels that the stablecoin has hit a certain level of maturity.
• Avoid listing the stablecoin on CEXs. Initial reports suggested that UST initially depegged on centralized exchanges while its peg either held or was slightly off on-chain and decentralized exhcnages. It was the CEX unpeg that caused mass-panic, and we can't have that. Especially early-on. Maybe it makes sense to not have the stablecoin on CEXs. I think keeping it further away from fiat might actually give this stablecoin a better shot at UST's long-running vision of being a universal currency. I could be totally wrong here, but I've just got a gut feeling. My gut feelings on things like this is usually correct, or a step in the right direction for an even grander solution (I'm a software engineer; iterations = better abstractions).
• I don't think the concept of LFG was a horrible idea, but I think it was a horrible idea to use Bitcoin to back UST's peg in times of emergency though. Let's face it, the odds of UST depegging usually handles in serious dips. Having a massive cache of Bitcoin that could be dumped in its entirety at any given moment always sounded like a bad idea to me because Bitcoin is the control variable for all of crypto. Dumping billions of dollars of Bitcoin in an instant would tank Bitcoin's value and therefore all the alt coins. We were asking for bad publicity once shit hit the fan (as we've seen).
• Once the fore-mentioned gas-based Luna burn is done (see above), we could continue the fee hike, but in the form of this stablecoin purely for the sake of burning it if its value depegs below $1.00 for too long. Honestly, I was under the impression that UST's peg would be superior to anything we've seen yet because it could just respond automatically by printing more Luna. Tuns out I was wrong... It sounded like the Black Rock & Citadel event happened because Do Kwon traded a bunch of Bitcoin at a discount for UST. This is what supposedly caused it to depeg badly.
• Maybe instead of having Bitcoin as collateral, what if some of those gas fees also went towards the purchase of other tokens from other Cosmos-based blockchains? This would be separate from the stablecoin liquidity pool (mentioned previously), of course. I'd recommend Cosmos-based tokens because the transactions will probably be cheaper and faster to swap in a pinch (we avoid CEX's this way which might be a good thing?). This helps us build the value of other tokens (which the community can vote on) by having our L1 blockchain invest in them. This could also spread awareness of our platform and stablecoin just like those LFG Bitcoin purchases did. If we can repeat that kind of press, then we'd actually win investors from other blockchains (although more difficult to do because of the bad press). Regardless, this could be a foot in the door to help establish working relationships with other blockchains too. We'll need that to build stablecoin compatibility which could really drive Luna's price up. Remember James from Invest Answers on YouTube, and his video about Luna being $80k theorertically? That'd be a fantastic bucket list item. These investments will also be yet another layer of security against black swan events like LFG's collateralized Bitcoin was supposed to do. This way, we're not tanking Bitcoin or any single other coin for that matter.
• Write tests to try to cause black swan scenarios in the testnet. I'm sure TFL was already doing this, but make them public to the community when discovered, and work with the community in solving them before releasing this. Once it's live, you're playing with billions of dollars of others' money (as we all know). I'm still harping on my own engineers for not writing tests lol.
• When some one finds a vulnerability, thank them for their wealth of knowledge instead of accusing them being financially poor.

Now, why would I want to do all of this with a seemingly "dead" blockchain that'll most-likely be forked? Here are my reasons:

• We all lost a lot of money on this blockchain with this project, so we're already invested (myself included). It's really a question when we'll be ready to accept realized loss, should we do nothing at all. Doing something about it improves those odds.
• It'd be great to work with the people who looked forward to all the updates everyday like I did. Rebuilding investor confidence has to start with the little guys/women like us because it's easier to sweep us under the rug. If we can improve this ecosystem that gives us confidence (myself included), then we can win back the whales too.
• Speaking of investors, how many of you LUNAtics have been keeping an eye on the other sub frequently since last year? Remember when it broke 12k members and it was a big deal? Remember when it broke 50k members? I do. See, we didn't just invest a lot of our money. We also invested a lot of our time in this project. Money comes and goes, but you'll never get that time back. We're all 1.5 - 2 years older from when Terra started to take off. We've aged! The thing is, you and I saw results the whole way through. We saw what worked, and we also got feedback on what didn't work (especially the spectacular failures). This project was once nearly $120 a token. Do you remember that? Do you remember what that felt like? That does mean something. It just so happens that a lot of the things that people warned us about were more or less true: we should have worried about it. The thing is, maybe it was the execution that was flawed?
• Terra Luna used to mean something great. Although we're all familiar with the term "all publicity is good publicity", I'm not sure how it is in this situation. I'd like to find out because maybe the negative press just gave us a bunch of awareness that we could use.
• There are a lot of people are in the other Terra Luna sub saying things like "take responsibility" and "you have no one to blame but yourself" regarding our investments, and I agree. Sure, I'm pissed as hell that I lost a ton of my money. Anyone would be, especially given the circumstances, but I also knew the risks since the very first investment. I accept what happened, and if it's a total loss, then so be it. There's no harm in trying though. If anything, we're just faced with a problem that we're heavily incentivized in fixing. I'm not trying to downplay what happened here, but that's one way to look at it, right? This might just be your ultimate HODL yet...

So that's my fantasy. I've been thinking about this for the last week or so. I'm sure there are holes, probably plenty of holes in my ideas, but I've never wrote it all out before either.

How about you? What would you do different if you could pass any proposal, or take over the project?