BREAKDOWN: What Happened to the Luna Foundation Guard’s Bitcoin Billions?
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2022
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The community is getting louder about wanting answers to this lingering question.
This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io, NEAR and FTX US.
The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) was created to build a bitcoin collateral backstop for the UST stablecoin. As UST began to lose its peg, the LFG’s BTC started to move. Firms like Elliptic were able to trace it only so far, but then no farther. It wasn’t until Monday morning the LFG officially commented, but some are still hungry for more information.
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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features Nathaniel Whittemore aka NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell, research by Scott Hill and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Jared Schwartz is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsors is “Catnip” by Famous Cats and “I Don't Know How To Explain It” by Aaron Sprinkle. Image credit: mustafahacalaki/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk. Join the discussion at discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. |
| 0:09.1 | It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. |
| 0:15.0 | The breakdown is sponsored by nexo.io, near an FtX, and produced and distributed by CoinDesk. |
| 0:22.7 | What's going on, guys? It is Monday, May 16th, and today we are talking about what the |
| 0:28.9 | hell happened to the Luna Foundation Guard's Bitcoin. Before we get into that, a couple |
| 0:34.5 | bits of housekeeping. There are two ways to listen to the |
| 0:38.6 | breakdown podcast. You can listen on the Coin Desk Crypto Podcast Network feed, which features both |
| 0:44.5 | the breakdown alongside other great shows, or you can listen on the breakdown only feed. |
| 0:50.0 | Both shows come out the same day with the CoinDesk feed coming out in the afternoon and |
| 0:53.7 | the breakdown only feed coming out later in the evening. |
| 0:56.6 | Wherever you listen, if you are enjoying the show, please give us a rating and a review. |
| 1:01.3 | It really helps people discover the show. |
| 1:04.0 | Finally, a disclosure as always. |
| 1:06.1 | In addition to them being a sponsor of the show, I also work with FTX. |
| 1:10.5 | So today we are discussing what happened to |
| 1:13.9 | the Bitcoin purchased by the Luna Foundation Guard. And in some ways transitioning our coverage |
| 1:19.9 | of this whole Luna episode of the last week. Now, for just a little bit of context, I'm going to |
| 1:25.7 | assume most of you have been keeping track of this whole thing. The idea of the Luna Foundation Guard was to backstop and defend the peg |
| 1:33.4 | of UST, which was the Terra ecosystem stablecoin in the event that it became depegged. |
| 1:40.0 | UST was one of the most pure play algorithmic stable coins out there. And in some ways, the LFG and their |
| 1:46.4 | big Bitcoin purchase was a concession from Doe Kwan and the other people on the team that having |
| 1:52.7 | a certain collateral backing could be useful in the event of a bank run as well. As everything transpired |
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