The Chopping Block: Kevin Zhou on Why He Knew Terra Would Crash - Ep.353

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. On this episode, Kevin Zhou, the CEO of Galois Capital and long-time critic of UST, also joined the conversation. Show topics:
the UST depeg and Terra collapse  Kevin on what it was like being one of the earliest naysayers of LUNA why Kevin believes that UST initially depegged and became a “fear cascade” how Galois Capital traded the UST depeg, from shorting LUNA to keeping their UST in Anchor until the last moment why Kevin was disappointed in the lack of transparency in how Luna Foundation Guard attempted to defend the UST peg the implications of UST’s collapse across the crypto and traditional financial markets  whether Terra’s decline will lead to more regulation in the crypto industry why Anchor was the “cancer” of the Terra system  why VCs are reticent to say something bad about protocols they don’t believe in why grifting is so much more prevalent in crypto  what Jump Trading had to do with the Terra collapse the difference between the way trading and VC firms interact with crypto the issues with the Terra 2 proposal without UST which chains are receiving the people leaving the Terra ecosystem  why Haseeb compared the collapse of UST to the collapse of the Soviet Union who Kevin believes should be reimbursed in the aftermath of the UST collapse how political considerations might affect how Terra continues to develop going forward why Terra NFTs were skyrocketing during the Terra meltdown whether crypto is in a bear or bull market


Hosts

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital https://twitter.com/hosseeb Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital https://twitter.com/tomhschmidt Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures https://twitter.com/tarunchitra  Robert Leshner, founder of Compound  https://twitter.com/rleshner
Guest
Kevin Zhou, CEO of Galois Capital https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-zhou-82938324/
Previous Unchained Coverage

Nic Carter, Erik Voorhees, and Eric Wall on the collapse of UST https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-terra-collapsed-and-whether-an-algo-stablecoin-can-ever-succeed/  Do Kwon on backing UST with BTC ​​https://unchainedpodcast.com/do-kwon-is-backing-ust-with-bitcoin-and-heres-what-else-he-is-building/ Kevin Zhou on the risk of UST’s death spiral https://unchainedpodcast.com/heres-why-usdn-depegged-from-the-dollar-and-why-ust-might-too/  Jon Wu on how Terra got depegged: https://unchainedpodcast.com/did-someone-deliberately-attack-terra-luna-to-kick-off-a-death-spiral/ Do Kwon on The Chopping Block https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xl8u7-KVwM
Haseeb’s summary of the Terra collapse:
https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/the-reign-of-terra-the-rise-and-fall-of-ust-208dabbc8e6e
Jon Wu’s write-up on the UST Depeg
Article: https://www.notboring.co/p/terra-to-the-moon-and-back  Thread: https://twitter.com/jonwu_/status/1523793482850050048?s=20&t=lvB1zdz98wu5TE5emh4fCw
Terra Background Info
Twitter: https://twitter.com/terra_money  UST Mechanics: https://angelprotocol.medium.com/how-does-ust-work-ec7b2f6e2c2c UST Bank Run: https://www.wsj.com/articles/crash-of-terrausd-shakes-crypto-there-was-a-run-on-the-bank-11652371839 Speculation of a deliberate attack: https://onchainwizard.substack.com/p/how-to-make-800m-in-crypto-soros?s=r Do Kwon’s Proposed Terra’s Revival: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/05/13/do-kwon-proposes-restart-of-terra-blockchain-as-ust-luna-plummet/ Anchor: https://twitter.com/anchor_protocol  Terra 2.0: https://unchainedpodcast.com/do-kwon-has-a-new-plan-again/
LFG Purchases
Luna Foundation Guard: https://lfg.org/team/ Pomp – the $10B Bitcoin Bet on Stablecoins https://pomp.substack.com/p/the-10-billion-bitcoin-bet-on-stablecoins?s=w 3/10 BTC purchase https://twitter.com/LFG_org/status/1503680315969060864  $1 BTC billion purchase https://twitter.com/terra_money/status/1496162889085902856  TFL x LFG relationship https://twitter.com/stablekwon/status/1502225674840555523
Galois Twitter threads
https://twitter.com/Galois_Capital/status/1511455703642394628  https://twitter.com/Galois_Capital/status/151119893095193804
Tarun’s thoughts on algorithmic stablecoins
https://twitter.com/Unchained_pod/status/1512465290910736391