Tether CTO: Terra wasn’t a rug pull, it was a poorly designed ‘castle of cards’

cointelegraph.com:

Tether and Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino said that the Terra (LUNA) project was not intended to be a rug pull, but was simply “poorly designed.”

Speaking on the Terra ecosystem’s market-shattering crash, Ardoino likened its algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) to a “castle of cards” that was due to fall at any time.

Many in the crypto community have highlighted a long list of dubious comments/actions from beleaguered Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon that raise questions about his actions. It has also been reported that Kwon also worked on a previously failed algo-stablecoin project dubbed “Basis Cash.”

Ardoino made the comments during an appearance on the Reimagine Unplugged podcast this week, from Reimagine, a media company that focuses on Web3 content and events. The CTO stated that a big problem was with Kwon’s misguided sense of self belief:

“That there was like a castle of cards and it could fall down, but of course he couldn't say it, because otherwise it would have fallen down much faster And again, it was clear to me, it was clear to many that I know that it was a bad idea,” he added.

CTO @Tether_to, @paoloardoino on $UST:“It's all fun and games until you are a 10 billion stablecoin. And then it becomes much harder the faster you grow, the more you grow, right, because if you are a stablecoin, especially an algorithmic stablecoin.." https://t.co/UNuvNhZoP9

The CTO went on to state the UST had become too big to maintain its peg, as its collateralization (primarily in Bitcoin at the time as it attempted to build its reserves) was not large enough to support the stablecoin but was still “big enough to crash the market even further.”

“They were basically in a cascade situation where they had to defend the peg so they have to