Decoding Terra Crypto Stablecoin Ecosystem: What is LUNA, Mirror Anchor Protocol?
Terra is a smart contract blockchain built on Cosmos SDK and uses the Tendermint Delegated Proof of Stake consensus mechanism. It was officially launched in January 2018, while its mainnet came out in 2019.
Terra’s stable coin, TerraUSD (UST), is the largest growing asset in the market and currently is also the fourth largest stablecoin in the market with a market cap of $2,214,800,172,858, according to the coinmarketcap.
Terra aims to achieve a stable baseline interest rate via the Anchor Protocol, which provides a stable and predictable return on users’ deposits. Mirror Protocol by Terra eases the creation of Synthetic assets called mAssests.
Terra: A Brief Explanation
Terra is a smart contract blockchain network created using Cosmos SDK and aims to render a financial ecosystem that is decentralized and maximizes the potential of crypto and is algorithmically governed.

Each Terra stablecoin is convertible into LUNA, the network’s native token, rather than using over-collateralized or fiat-crypto as reserves.

Terra was developed in January 2018 by Terraform Labs, which is a Korean Blockchain enterprise founded by Daniel Shin and Do Kwon, graduates of the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford, respectively. Terra officially launched its mainnet in 2019.
Terra uses the Tendermint Delegated Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, open-source software that lets users launch their blockchain and code and build applications in any language.

How Does The Terra Protocol Work?
Terra has gathered a large user base in South Korea, where its headquarters is, and in general, it is quite popular in Asian Markets.

For instance, the taxi users in Mongolia use Terra MNT, which is pegged to Mongolian tugrik, for doing transactions.

Terra also announced its collaboration with a South Korea-based mobile payments application called Chai, in July 2019, under which the purchases made through the application on e-commerce platforms are transferred using the Terra Blockchain Network. Also, along with each transaction, a 2%–3% fee is charged to the Merchant.

Tokens minted on the platform are called Terra currencies, and they exist alongside the network’s native token for governance and utility token, LUNA.

Currently, the network relies on a set of 130 validators, in the future, the network is anticipated to see an increase of 300 validators.

Terra validators verify and settle transactions and also secure the network by running full nodes to commit blocks to the chain. In simple words, Validators help maintain the consensus and secure the network. It can also be understood that the validators of proof of stake (PoS) based blockchains and miners in proof of work (PoW) blockchain play a similar role.

Users who want to do mining either have to bond their own LUNA token for at least a minimum of 21 days or have other users delegate their LUNA stakes.

LUNA stakes, in return, can delegate their tokens to become delegators.