Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies with stable prices even when the crypto market falls. The coin’s supply and demand are balanced by an algorithm. Because of their non-volatile character, stablecoins are ideal for borrowing and lending. However, the current UST-LUNA crash opened the eyes of investors to understand the fundamentals of algorithm stablecoins. For instance, the Luna supply pool adds and subtracts from Terra’s supply to keep the price stable. Users can then use an algorithmic module created by the blockchain developers to burn Luna to mint Terra and even Terra to mint Luna. Let’s understand what happened to UST and LUNA in this article. Massive sell-off curve It all started with a major Curve sell-off and the 3-pool was somewhat out of balance due to an $85 million UST-to-USDC swap. To restore equilibrium to the Curve pool, 50,000 $ETH was sold and 20,000 $ETH was sent to Binance. Heavy withdrawal This results in a $2 billion $UST withdrawal from Anchor. The peg is now fluctuating between 0.987 and 0.995. The first defence, though, is successful. The peg, however, never fully recovered. Factors that let attackers succeed Let’s take a look at four things that were in place to ensure that the attackers would succeed before we get into the rest of the story: The assailants took out a $100,000 bitcoin loan from Gemini (which they short). The attackers agree to a $1 billion $UST settlement. OTC In March and April, LFG (L...
