Terra Revises Ecosystem Funding Program, Osmosis Labs CEO Remarks on Huge Blow from Terra Fallout

Terra 2.0, the new Terra ecosystem birthed following the exodus of users and developers from the former network after hemorrhaging north of $40 billion, has struggled to regain reuse. Still, several developers have shown intentions of launching projects on the blockchain. Some have even unveiled roadmaps guiding their developments as part of these revival efforts. Terra Rebels, the DAO rebuilding Terra Classic, earlier revealed a commitment to make the ecosystem wholesome in a 4-year LUNA revival plan.

This week, the team published ‘Terra Expedition,' a revised proposal version of the Developer Mining and Alignment program specified when the chain launched. The program will be financed by the reserved 9.5% of the total LUNA supply. Here's a breakdown of the revised funding program and other recent events around Terra:

Updated LUNA ecosystem funding program

Terra ecosystem developers successfully updated the original ecosystem funding proposal, as it didn't meet the community's needs. The previous recommendation was centered around the distribution of funds based on the value locked in native protocols. It stipulated that 100 million LUNA tokens (roughly 10% of the total supply) be distributed in the ecosystem, with an 80% proportion going to developer mining rewards. While the proposal was sound, there were not many projects with a significant total value locked which worked against the fair distribution of mining revenue.

The lack of competition among projects on the network ultimately invalidated the original distribution model. The new revenue distribution model sets aside 50 million LUNA as liquidity mining rewards and cuts mining rewards to 20 million LUNA. The developers hope that the proposed program for allocating 95 million LUNA will help encourage development in the Terra ecosystem.

There will be a 20 million LUNA developers grant to LUNA mainnet builders and a recipient amount capped at 125,000 LUNA per project yearly. The new proposal additionally advances 5 million LUNA to be distributed to inspire traction as incentive awards across the DeFi and NFT niches. On governance matters, it set forth that a committee made of TerraForm Labs (TFL) employees, community leaders and external experts be formed to oversee the fund allocation. This seven-member committee, whose evaluation will be conducted across a dozen months, will have voting rights on funding proposals and discretionary authority.

Earlier this week, Financial Times reported that a group of retail investors had resorted to pursuing Terra co-founder Do Kwon outside law enforcement channels. The UST Restitution Group (URG) has around 4,400 members who engage on Discord. A 26-year-old member of the group, identified as Kang Hyung-suk is said to be rounding up a posse in pursuit of the cagey South Korean national in less than a fortnight.

Osmosis Labs' Aggarwal admits Terra crash dealt a huge blow to the protocol

Reflecting on losses incurred in the aftermath of Terra's collapse, Osmosis CEO Sunny Aggarwal joked that the creator of the Terra had either an IQ of 50 or 150, but he couldn't decide which of the two. Aggarwal recounted the May cave-in as one of his worst experiences this year, revealing that Osmosis continues to reel from the impact.

“The Terra crash hit us incredibly hard because we were one of the biggest DEXs for providing liquidity to TerraUSD and Luna Classic […] it made up over 50% of our liquidity,” the co-founder remarked.

The Osmosis lead developer also disclosed in the same sitting that he once explored Ethereum as a project to join, but it didn't turn out to be convincing as he thought. Aggarwal said his interest led him to research proof-of-stake white papers, where he stumbled upon Tendermint, which impressed him because of its simplicity. Collaborations with Tendermint, the development team behind Cosmos, began at this point and have been maintained for half a decade.

 “Take a look at Ethereum, it has gotten so big to the point where there's tens of thousands of dApps building on it. And that, in my view, means that technical advancement on the blockchain grinds to a halt.” 

Osmosis is one of the crypto projects seeing interest from institutional investors who have earmarked it as a promising investment in the long term.

The Osmosis executive expressed his view on innovation in the space. He observed that Ethereum is incapable of meeting the considerations of the sheer number of projects on its network.

“Things would be much simpler if instead of you had fully vertically integrated app chains that could iterate the protocol layer very rapidly,” he said. “Each application and community should have sovereignty.”

The automated market maker (AMM) protocol operating on Cosmos currently has $206 million in total value locked (TVL), as per DeFi Llama data, down from its March 3 peak of $1.83 billion.

To learn more, visit our Investing in Cosmos guide.

Former Terra developer raises $15M for cross-chain modular rollup start-up Eclipse

Neal Somani was still actively building in the Terra blockchain when it imploded in May this year. He was working on Terranova, a project that sought to introduce EVM capabilities on the Terra blockchain. The Web3 developer found an opportunity out of the disappointment spread all over the crypto space following the breakdown. Somani created Eclipse, a layer two cross-chain modular start-up enabling value transfer across crypto ecosystems.

The former quantitative analyst eyed creating a remedy for a Terra-like situation by embracing more flexibility than current cross-chain platforms. Such a solution could empower developers to set up rollups on multiple layer one networks. Somani's ambitions and go-getter attitude got him into the Web3 space and as suchhe's not been fazed by the investor concern he's faced due to his association with Terra Classic.

The developer told Blockworks that he's learned to take up the burden of acknowledging that the Terra breakdown happened. His ambition for multi-chain support rather than relying on a single channel has resounded well with investors. Eclipse has raised $6 million in pre-seed funding and a further $9 million in seed money from Tribe Capital and Tabiya, with investors getting equity and Eclipse tokens that will be announced at a future date in return. Somani added that he's been trying to keep Terra developers active, recommending them for new projects as fantastic builders.