Terra Blockchain Temporarily Halted to Protect The Protocol From Attacks

Following the recent headwinds surrounding the Terra ecosystem and its native cryptocurrencies, the blockchain was temporarily halted to protect the ecosystem against malicious attacks. 

Terra Blockchain Officially Halts

According to an official announcement on Twitter, the Terra blockchain was frozen at exactly a block height of 7603700, making the blockchain inaccessible by users. 

Per the report, network validators have decided to pause the blockchain to prevent governance attacks as LUNA prices continue to crash. The coin is currently traded at $0.0135 from an all-time high (ATH) of $119 the previous year, according to CoinMarketCap data.

LUNA is a governance token that gives holders voting power with regard to future updates and the general governance of the platform. 

In a separate tweet, the LUNA Guard Foundation disclosed that validators are applying a patch to stop further delegations on the platform, noting that the network will be restarted soon after. 

Shortly after, the patch results were released stating that delegations will be disabled once block production resumes. The tweet also noted that the blockchain will be restarted once two-thirds of the voting power comes online. 

The Sudden Terra (LUNA) Collapse

Earlier this week, the stablecoin algorithmic coin (UST) powering the Terra ecosystem depegged from its U.S Dollar peg and was trading around $0.3644 at the time of the report. 

In an attempt to restore UST to its Dollar peg, the Luna Foundation Guard, a non-profit organization that controls the network, emptied its Bitcoin portfolio worth $2.2 billion to top up its stablecoin reserve.  Unfortunately, this action could not keep the coin afloat and the price continued to crash. 

Terra LUNA on the other hand has had a whirlwind of a week, falling from its steady price of more than $80 to trading at less than two cents. 

UST Recovery Plan

As Terra cryptocurrencies continue to crash, Terra Foundation CEO Don Kwon has revealed plans to rebuild the ecosystem and restore its UST peg.

Kwon outlined a series of measures that would be taken to restore the UST peg to its former position, which involves allowing the stablecoin holders to sell and exit their current positions among others. 

A few hours later, the platform announced that Terra Blockchain is back online and has resumed block production.