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Terra (LUNA) is a public blockchain protocol that originated from Terra Classic. Terra Classic was home to the algorithmic stablecoin TerraClassicUSD (UST), which was backed by the now-renamed LUNC token. UST collapsed in a bank run in May 2022, causing LUNA's value to plummet to near zero and leading to the creation of a new chain, resulting in Terra Classic and Terra. Terra Classic development began in January 2018, with the blockchain launching in April 2019. It aimed to combine the price stability and adoption of fiat currencies with the censorship-resistance of Bitcoin (BTC), offering fast and affordable settlements through its UST stablecoin. Terra Classic supported stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar, South Korean won, Mongolian tugrik, and the IMF's Special Drawing Rights. The new Terra blockchain continues without UST, leveraging the LUNA community and aiming to build on the user experience that once made Terra Classic a top blockchain by total value locked. Many DApps have agreed to migrate.

Terra was founded in January 2018 by Daniel Shin and Do Kwon. They conceived the project to promote blockchain adoption through price stability and usability. Kwon became CEO of Terraform Labs, the company behind Terra. Before Terra, Shin co-founded and led Ticket Monster (TMON), a major South Korean e-commerce platform, and later co-founded Fast Track Asia, a startup incubator. Kwon previously founded and served as CEO of Anyfi, a startup offering decentralized wireless mesh networking, and worked as a software engineer at Microsoft and Apple. After Terra Classic's collapse, Kwon proposed a revival plan that led to the hard fork into Terra. His plan faced criticism from Binance's Changpeng Zhao and Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin, as well as from UST investors. The community voted for the plan, and Terra Classic hard forked into the new Terra blockchain on May 27, 2022.

Terra continues without its algorithmic stablecoin UST, aiming to preserve its ecosystem with hundreds of developers working on various decentralized applications. The LUNA token will be airdropped to Luna Classic stakers, holders, residual UST holders, and essential Terra Classic app developers. Terra removed the Terra Foundation Labs wallet from the airdrop, making the chain fully community-owned. The airdrop is based on two snapshots: one before the crash (May 7) and one after (May 27). Eligibility criteria are outlined for each group.

Terra (LUNA) has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, distributed as follows: 8% for a developer mining program, with essential app developers receiving a share based on total value locked quarterly for four years; 1.5% for a developer alignment program, allocated to protocol teams live on Terra Classic, weighted by TVL from a pre-attack snapshot, with a one-year cliff and three-year vesting; 0.5% as an emergency allocation to app developers, provided at launch with a commitment to return funds if no product is launched within a year; 20% for a community pool controlled by staked governance; 35% for pre-attack LUNA holders, with varying unlock schedules based on wallet size; and 10% for pre-attack aUST holders, with a 500K whale cap.

The Terra blockchain is secured using a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm based on Tendermint. LUNA token holders stake their tokens as collateral to validate transactions and receive rewards in proportion to their staked amount. Terra incentivizes network security by offering staking rewards of 7% annual inflation. This aligns the interests of validators with the long-term success of the Terra ecosystem.

Several centralized exchanges have committed to trading the new LUNA token, including Huobi, Bitrue, Bitfinex, KuCoin, Gate.io, Bybit, and LBank. More exchanges are expected to follow.