The collapse of Terra and FTX in 2022 should have ended the story of their tokens. In traditional finance, a failure like this leaves nothing behind. When a company enters bankruptcy, its shares are delisted, and its value disappears. The organization dies, and the asset dies with it.
Crypto does not follow that pattern. In this market, death does not silence an asset; it often becomes the beginning of a new phase. A phase shaped by open networks, global exchanges, and traders who are always looking for volatility. This is why LUNA, LUNC, and FTT survived long after their foundations were gone. All three tokens lost their purpose, their structure, and the backing of the organizations that created them. Yet, none of them disappeared. Instead, they entered a new kind of existence that sits between speculation and memory.
The reason is simple: a blockchain can continue to run even when the company behind it collapses. A token can keep trading as long as an exchange lists it. There is no single authority that can switch off the market. Once a token becomes liquid and visible, it takes on a life of its own. Traders do not wait for permission to speculate; they only need a price and a narrative.
This separation between the asset and the institution is unique to crypto. It allows a token to outlive bankruptcy, criminal cases, or total technical failure. What remains is a shell that traders fill with new meaning. For some, it becomes nostalgia. For others, it becomes a chance to chase high-risk gains. For many, it becomes a way to turn the memory of loss into the hope of recovery.
This creates a new category of digital assets: tokens that should be gone but continue to move through the market. Their fundamentals are broken, yet they still attract volume. They respond to emotion more than logic. They carry the energy of speculation long after their original purpose has collapsed. They are zombie tokens.
LUNC, FTT, and LUNA 2.0 each represent a different form of this survival. LUNC grew into a community-driven movement built on the idea of redemption through burning. FTT turned into a token tied to court hearings, media coverage, and the personal fate of Sam Bankman-Fried. LUNA 2.0 became a chain trying to rebuild without a clear story and without the attention that drives most Web3 ecosystems.
Together, these tokens reveal something important: crypto value is not only shaped by utility but is also shaped by belief, fear, loss, and the search for meaning. When those forces are strong, an asset can continue long after the world expects it to vanish.
LUNC and the Rise of a Community-Driven Burn Culture
The collapse of Terra began with the failure of its algorithmic stablecoin. When UST lost its peg, the protocol printed LUNA at extreme speed. The supply exploded from millions to trillions within days, and the price fell to almost nothing. The stablecoin could not be saved, and the ecosystem broke.
At this point, most expected the chain to disappear. Instead, the community took over the old Terra blockchain, renamed it Terra Classic, and renamed the inflated token LUNC. This shift marked the start of a new phase. The token no longer had a real use case, and its supply was far beyond what any normal token economy could support. But the community did not care about theoretical models; what they cared about was the possibility of reversing the damage.
The central idea became simple: if the supply is too large, then burn it until scarcity returns. This idea spread quickly because it gave people direction after a painful collapse and offered an emotional path forward. It did not matter if the numbers did not add up; the burn narrative gave holders something to rally around.
The first attempt was the 1.2% burn tax on all on-chain transactions. It was a dramatic move designed to show commitment, but the tax was too heavy. On-chain activity collapsed because users did not want to pay the high fee, and developers left the ecosystem because the environment was no longer attractive. The community then reduced the rate to 0.2% to restore some activity.
Over time, the burn mechanism evolved. The Tax2Gas upgrade placed the burn logic inside the gas system so exchanges and developers did not need to write special code. The community hoped this would bring back more usage. It was a technical improvement, but the real driver of LUNC price was something deeper: belief. The narrative remained stronger than the math.
Binance became the most powerful force in this story. The exchange decided to burn part of the trading fees from LUNC pairs, making Binance a central figure in a chain that claimed to be community-owned. Every month, traders waited for the burn report. When the numbers were high, the token pumped; when they were low, sentiment dropped. The price of LUNC became tied to the actions of a single exchange rather than the activity on its own chain.
Governance also became chaotic. Different developer groups fought for funding and for control over the narrative. Validator influence shaped proposals, and internal conflict slowed development. Yet, none of this reduced speculation. For many holders, LUNC was no longer about technology; it was about emotion, about the dream of seeing the token return to one cent or even one dollar. It was a lottery ticket in the shape of a blockchain.
Behavioral psychology explains a large part of this. Many investors who bought during the collapse faced deep losses. Selling would mean accepting those losses, while holding allowed them to imagine recovery. This is a classic form of loss aversion. Unit bias also played a role: a cheap token feels accessible and full of potential, even when its market cap shows the opposite.
LUNC survives because it became more than an asset; it became a community ritual, a shared attempt to turn a mistake into a victory. The burn movement is not an economic plan; it is a story of redemption that keeps the token alive.
FTT and the Survival of a Token Declared Worthless by Law
FTT represents a very different kind of zombie token. It is not powered by community unity; it is powered by legal drama and public attention. The FTX collapse was one of the most damaging events in crypto history, revealing misuse of customer funds and a deep lack of internal controls. When the exchange failed, the token that represented its fee structure and buyback program lost its core purpose.
During 2023, some traders believed in a possible reboot of the exchange. Each news headline mentioning interest from investors or comments from the new leadership created short spikes in price. FTT became a speculative tool tied to rumors rather than real plans.
In early 2024, the legal team made it clear in court that FTX would not restart. The system was too broken, and no buyer wanted it. The market reacted with a quick drop but then stabilized. Traders continued to buy and sell the token, even though its main function would never return.
The decisive moment came in late 2024. A Delaware court approved the reorganization plan for FTX. The judge stated clearly that FTT had no value; it was worth zero in the creditor waterfall, and holders would receive nothing.
Even after this legal declaration, the token did not disappear. It continued to trade. Prices moved sharply when news about creditor repayment surfaced. Retail users often misunderstood these updates. When the media reported that customers would recover funds, some traders assumed this meant FTT could rise, not understanding that token holders were not part of the repayment group. This confusion created new waves of buying.
FTT also reacted to the legal situation of Sam Bankman-Fried. Appeals court hearings and even small pieces of news triggered spikes. The token turned into a symbol for the ongoing story; it was no longer tied to a functioning business model but to attention itself.
Another factor kept FTT alive: the circulating supply on exchanges was very small. Most of the supply was locked inside bankruptcy estates. A small float meant that even modest trading activity could move the price. This made FTT easy to manipulate and attractive to short-term traders who wanted sharp movements.
FTT shows that in crypto, a token can be legally dead yet still active. The market cares about volatility and attention more than legal declarations. FTT will likely fade only when the bankruptcy estate is fully closed and major exchanges decide to delist it. Until then, it will continue to move because traders still see opportunity in its volatility.
LUNA 2.0 and the Quiet Struggle of a Chain Without a Story
LUNA 2.0 sits in a different place from LUNC and FTT. It is not a symbol of redemption or a token tied to legal chaos; it is a chain trying to rebuild its identity after the collapse of the old Terra network.
When Terraform Labs entered bankruptcy in 2024 and agreed to dissolve the organization, the new LUNA chain lost its parent company. The team burned its tokens and stepped aside. The chain became fully community-owned. In theory, this offered a fresh start.
The problem was not technical. LUNA 2.0 works and has a solid base built on the Cosmos SDK. Developers can deploy applications, and the infrastructure is reliable. The challenge is narrative. The chain does not have a clear story to attract new users or new builders.
LUNC has the burn narrative; FTT has the court narrative. LUNA 2.0 does not have a narrative at all. Without a narrative, the chain struggles to hold attention, and in Web3, attention is the resource that determines growth.
Activity numbers remain low, and the token struggles to perform. Competing chains offer stronger stories or stronger incentives, and newer ecosystems pull builders away. LUNA 2.0 ends up in a quiet zone where it survives but does not stand out.
Its future may follow a few paths: it could merge into another Cosmos chain, it could remain alive but with declining relevance, or it could surprise the market by finding a new niche that gives it a fresh identity. But the most likely scenario is slow fading: a chain that works but does not lead.
The story of LUNA 2.0 shows another side of crypto: technology alone cannot give a chain life; it needs meaning. Without meaning, even a functional chain becomes invisible.
The Economics of Tokens That Refuse to Die
LUNA, LUNC, and FTT reveal the deeper behavior of crypto markets. They show that value is shaped not only by utility or legal structure but by emotion, time, and narrative. A token can lose its function, lose its issuer, or be ruled worthless in court, yet it can still survive as long as traders continue to assign meaning to it.
LUNC survives through the energy of a community that wants redemption. FTT survives because traders follow the drama around one of the biggest financial scandals in crypto. LUNA 2.0 survives because a chain can keep running even when the world stops paying attention.
These tokens do not live because of fundamentals; they live because of human behavior. Hope, fear, loss, and belief move markets. These forces can keep tokens alive long after their logic breaks.
The afterlife of these tokens is not an odd accident; it is part of how crypto works. Narratives never disappear. Attention always finds a new path. And in this environment, a token can outlive the institution that created it. It can move through the market as a reminder of what crypto is at its core: a space where stories shape price and where even a dead token can refuse to die.