Crash of the crypto titans

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Hello reader,

A few days ago, I attended a meeting on blockchain and cryptocurrencies in Bangalore. And it was a sight to see.

A bunch of attendees wearing shirts emblazoned with “Bitcoin” milled about the bar area, stacking small plates with appetizers as Snoop Dogg’s “Young, Wild and Free” pulsed through the room.

“Literally every guy in crypto right now is having the worst day,” one of them said. By many counts, “literally every guy in crypto” is pretty much everyone – at least for the time being.

A huge drop in TerraUSD (UST), an algorithmic stablecoin – algos for short – that should always be worth US$1, has shaken the crypto world, and the consequences of the collapse are now playing out in the real world.

Today’s top story will help clear out the haze around UST and Luna, the other Terra token tied to the price of UST, and tell you where the company is headed.

Until then, we recommend that you bet on creating a zero-carbon economy by filling out this CDP x Tech in Asia questionnaire survey and help the startup ecosystem go green.

Today we look at:

• The latest stablecoin casualty and its chances of survival
• The seed round of an India-based IoT firm that aims to power cloud-based back-end infrastructure for smart devices
• Other newsy highlights such as SoftBank’s biggest annual loss since 2017 and Grab’s sustainability goals

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Premium summary

Terra-ble crypto ructions

Algorithmic stablecoin UST has been dragged into the spotlight in the last few days after it nosedived below the US$1 mark.

Critics of cryptocurrency – also known as cryptics – often say that algorithms were inherently fragile and vulnerable to massive sell-offs, and this crash just made the case for their complaints.

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A cloudy bonanza

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Quick bytes