Terra Opened Governance Vote on New Chain Without UST

Terra governance opened voting on Proposal 1623 on May 18, 2022, asking staked LUNA voting power to support a new blockchain without the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD, or UST. The preserved Terra Classic chain record timestamps submission and the start of voting at 11:17:46 UTC, with the window scheduled to close at the same time on May 25.

The proposal was titled “Terra Builders Alliance: Rebirth Terra Network.” Its on-chain description called for the existing chain to be renamed Terra Classic and its token Luna Classic, or LUNC. A new chain would take the Terra name and use a new LUNA token. That made the vote the first formal on-chain test of the recovery strategy advanced after UST lost its intended one-dollar value and the linked LUNA system unraveled.

What voters were being asked to support

The concise on-chain text set out three central commitments. First, the new chain would not include the failed algorithmic stablecoin. Second, new LUNA would be distributed to Luna Classic stakers and holders, residual UST holders, and essential application developers from the existing ecosystem. Third, the Terraform Labs wallet identified in the proposal would be excluded from the distribution whitelist, which the proposal characterized as making the new network community-owned.

Those terms established direction, not a completed migration. Terra’s governance documentation explains that a text proposal is a general petition requiring developers or community members to implement the requested feature manually. Opening the vote therefore did not create the chain, distribute tokens, restore UST’s peg, fix a dollar value for any future distribution, or guarantee support from exchanges and applications.

The distinction was especially important on May 18. Contemporaneous reports described strong early support in the live tally, but voting remained open for seven days and votes could change. This reconstruction does not preserve an early percentage because each report captured a different moving snapshot. The only final result belongs to a later date.

Why the opening mattered

The proposal forced Terra’s remaining stakeholders to choose between preserving the developer and validator network under a new token architecture and trying to repair or wind down the existing UST-centered system. It also separated two questions often blurred together in the collapse: whether software and applications built around Terra had continuing value, and whether the mechanism that had tried to hold UST at one dollar could be retained.

The proposed answer was to preserve the ecosystem while abandoning the stablecoin design on the new chain. That was consequential because UST had not been a side product; it had been central to Terra’s identity and economic model. A vote to proceed would therefore amount to a governance-led reconstitution of the network, not a simple parameter adjustment.

It also left material uncertainty. The proposal did not establish the future market price of new LUNA, the cash value recoverable by UST or LUNA holders, or whether every off-chain, bridged, custodial, or application-level balance could be recognized. No event-day market return is calculated here: crypto trading was fragmented across venues, and a governance proposal could not by itself establish causation for a broader price move.

What was known on May 18

By the end of May 18, Proposal 1623 was live and the architecture had been stated, but no binding outcome had been reached. Forum opposition to a new chain and support for token-burning alternatives showed that a live token-weighted tally was not equivalent to unanimity among users or holders. The defensible event-day conclusion was narrower: Terra had moved from informal recovery debate to a dated, on-chain governance process with a one-week decision window.

Later context

The chain record shows that Proposal 1623 later passed when voting closed on May 25, 2022. Terra documentation records the subsequent launch of the new network. Those outcomes clarify the proposal’s importance but were not known results on May 18.