Terra $45 Billion Face Plant Creates Crowd of Crypto Losers

This week’s undoing of the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin and its sister token Luna has ramifications for all of crypto. First, there’s the immediate impact: The rapid collapse of a once-popular pair of cryptocurrencies sent a ripple effect across the industry, contributing to plummeting coin prices that wiped hundreds of billions of market value from the digital-asset market and stoked worries over the potential fragility of digital-asset ventures.

Then there are the knock-on effects. In addition to delivering punishing losses to individual users and investment firms, the spectacular failure of a market darling like Terra threatens to have a cooling effect on the fundraisings that have jacked up crypto startups’ valuations in recent years. Venture capitalists who have long been some of the industry’s biggest cheerleaders may not have quite the same risk tolerance now -- especially those directly caught in the crossfire.