Binance said Monday it will support an upgrade of the Terra (LUNA) network later in the day, and the token climbed about 15%.
Key Points:
- Binance will pause Terra deposits and withdrawals while the v2.21.0 upgrade goes live, with trading left running.
- The upgrade activates at block height 22,942,000 and targets network security, stability and interoperability.
- LUNA gained almost 15% in a day and close to 30% over the week, with volume up nearly 1,290%.
Binance Suspends Terra Deposits For Upgrade
The exchange announced at 03:00 UTC that deposits and withdrawals of tokens on the Terra network stop at about 14:00 UTC on Sept. 21. The pause covers transfers only. Trading in LUNA carries on as normal, and Binance said it will handle the technical requirements for users who hold the token there. Transfers reopen once the exchange judges the upgraded network stable, and it does not plan to post a further notice.
The v2.21.0 release activates at block height 22,942,000, which Binance expects the network to reach at roughly 15:00 UTC, an hour earlier than some other accounts of the schedule. The upgrade is aimed at network security, stability and interoperability, the layers that sit under every transaction and application on the chain. The project team published its own notice.
The Terra Phoenix team said holders need to do nothing, though a short network pause may occur while validators update.
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LUNA Price Jumps As Futures Signals Split
LUNA traded near $0.0536 after a gain of almost 15% in 24 hours, stretching its advance over the week to roughly 30%. The token swung between $0.0464 and $0.0646 in that stretch. Daily volume rose close to 1,290%, a move that usually marks fresh speculative money rather than routine turnover.
On the daily chart, LUNA held above its 50-day simple moving average and sat just above the 200-day line. Its RSI eased from 71 to about 65.5, a reading that points to profit taking after the run. Futures positioning told a messier story, with open interest rising more than 90% in a day to about $5.10 million and doubling on Binance alone. It then slipped 8.55% across exchanges in a four-hour window.
Crypto Anu Sees A Familiar Upgrade Trade
Trader Crypto Anu called the sequence a classic upgrade playbook, citing the pending release, the paused exchange deposits and the volatility that followed. The trader measured LUNA's run at about 40%. That figure runs ahead of the 24-hour move shown by exchange data.
That pattern lands on a chain with an unusual history. Today's LUNA runs on a network Terra relaunched in May 2022, after its algorithmic stablecoin broke its dollar peg and roughly $40 billion in value vanished within days. Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison in December, after pleading guilty to fraud charges tied to that collapse. The token still trades at a little over five cents.
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