Terra

Terra was created in January 2018 with the singular vision of facilitating the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies by creating digitally native assets that are price-stable against the world's major fiat currencies. Keeping in mind that previous innovations in the technology of money was bootstrapped by large payment networks (Alipay with Taobao, Paypal with eBay, Visa with banks), Terra was born with the support of the Terra Alliance, 15 large e-commerce companies in Asia that collectively process 25 billion USD in annualized transaction volume and 45 million users. The vision of the project is that with the adoption and user engagement of a massive payment network, it will be able to, for the first time, bootstrap a blockchain payment network to the scale it deserves and facilitate far more powerful products and use cases through its infrastructure.

During conversations between co-founders, Daniel Shin and Do Kwon, the concept of Terra began as a solution towards immediate and massive usage of the cryptocurrency and blockchain infrastructure being built around them. To them, price stability and adoption were important in preparing the first steps towards massive adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain infrastructure. Daniel Shin, with his extensive experience in building one of the biggest e-commerce platforms in Asia, laid out the existing problems we face in payment networks that cannot be solved through just incremental improvements. Do Kwon, previously a founder of a wireless mesh network startup building decentralized application, explained how Terra can turn those problems into an opportunity to build money from the ground up.

One part of Terra's value contributions, payments, in essence replaces the complicated payments value chain, including credit card networks, banks, and payment gateways with a single blockchain layer. Through this, it can offer merchants a significantly cheaper transaction fee, saving them money that can be reinvested in something else. Further, in concert with the efficiencies that Terra has provided payment channels for both merchants and consumers, it continues to steadily provide infrastructural improvements and tools for the foundations of laying down a credibly neutral, distributed, and radically transparent ecosystem. Bolstered through the initial mass adoption of Terra's blockchain infrastructure powering its partner, CHAI, which has amassed over 1.3 million users to date, Terra moves naturally towards ecosystem building that offers competitive programmable payments, logistics, and infrastructure to power the plethora of industry that will be built on efficiency and scale.