Terra (LUNA) price rallies 40% ahead of Do Kwon’s Dec. 11 sentencing

Terra (LUNA) surged sharply ahead of Do Kwon’s upcoming sentencing, fueled by market speculation and recent ecosystem updates.

Terra traded around $0.2076 at press time, up 39% in the past day, The token has hovered between $0.147 and $0.243 in the last 24 hours. The move extends a sharp 7-day rally of 188% and a 30-day gain of 129%, though LUNA remains more than 98% below its pre-collapse all-time high.

Daily trading volume climbed to $418 million, a 38% jump from yesterday, showing a wave of speculative inflows into the token. Futures data adds weight to the uptrend.

Derivatives volume rose 5% to roughly $816 million while open interest increased 18% to $29 million, as per CoinGlass data. Rising OI during an aggressive price move often means that traders are building fresh positions, a sign of active conviction around the short-term narrative driving the market.

Sentencing speculation fuels the breakout

Much of the excitement is tied to the Dec. 11 U.S. court hearing for Terra co-founder Do Kwon. He was extradited from Montenegro earlier this year and pleaded guilty in August to wire fraud and conspiracy charges tied to the 2022 collapse of TerraUSD (UST), which erased roughly $40 billion in value.

Prosecutors are pushing for a 12-year sentence, while traders are preparing for the possibility of a lighter outcome that could bring a form of closure for the ecosystem. Viral but false “release rumors” helped inflate social momentum, feeding a rally that pushed weekly gains toward 200%.

While some see this as a final chapter in Terra’s (LUNA) legal saga, analysts warn that the entire reaction is event-driven and prone to a sharp reversal once the verdict lands. A harsher-than-expected decision could trigger fast profit-taking. 

Still, recent ecosystem developments have given traders some tangible anchor. Terra’s v2.18 upgrade on Dec. 8 improved security and Cosmos (ATOM) interoperability and tightened the LUNA–USTC relationship.

Governance Proposal #4844 also passed, opening discounted over-the-counter liquidity routes, which helped to ease concerns around thin market depth.

Terra price technical analysis

The daily chart shows a clean breakout from a long consolidation zone, where LUNA traded below its 20-day average with muted volume for weeks. A cluster of powerful green candles have propelled the market above the upper Bollinger Band, bringing an abrupt end to that period.

The breakout caused volatility to jump quickly, with the Bollinger Bands widening as buyers stepped in and absorbed any selling pressure on the way up. The 20-day moving average has already curled upward, showing that the short-term trend has clearly shifted.

Momentum signals are backing the strength of this move. The relative strength index is pushing towards 80, which shows solid buying pressure, but it also suggests the market faces a near-term exhaustion risk. 

Even so, momentum and MACD are still pointing in the right direction, and most of the short- and mid-term moving averages have flipped into aligned uptrends. That structure usually appears during the early stages of a trend rather than at the end of one.

Support now sits near the mid-$0.14–$0.16 zone, where the breakout first took shape, while resistance is forming around the recent peak near $0.24. A clean close above that level could extend the move, especially if volume stays elevated.

A failure to hold the upper band, however, would likely invite a pullback toward the rising 20-day average as traders lock in gains after an unusually fast weekly climb.