Stablecoins

In the wake of the sudden collapse of TerraUSD, several other stablecoins’ values (whose values are supposedly pegged to the dollar) have started facing issues. Deus Finance’s DEI coin is currently trading at around 66 cents and has been fluctuating since Sunday, reaching a low of around 52 cents early Monday morning. Unlike other major stablecoins like USD Coin and Tether, which (allegedly) have actual dollars or assets backing them, DEI’s values are controlled by algorithms making trades. It’s not that there’s no…

When it comes to crypto, all the questions sort of boil down to one: What, actually, is the point of it? Crypto is supposed to be special, i.e., not like other markets — at least if you listen to its boosters. But what if it’s not? It’s felt pretty spectacularly unspecial lately. The crypto market has been in a bit of a meltdown. The price of bitcoin, the godfather of the space, has fallen by more than half of its 2021 peak, and billions of dollars of value were lost from cryptocurrencies in a matter of hours. Coins…

The entire stablecoin market is now worth more than $160 billion.Justin Tallis | AFP via Getty ImagesRegulators are getting increasingly worried about stablecoins after the collapse of controversial cryptocurrency venture Terra.TerraUSD, an "algorithmic" stablecoin that's meant to be pegged one-to-one with the U.S. dollar, has erased much of its value this week after a stunning run on the bank that saw billions of dollars suddenly evaporate from its market value.Also known as UST, the cryptocurrency operated using a…

The cryptocurrency TerraUSD had one job: Maintain its value at $1 per coin.Since it launched in 2020, it had mostly done that, rarely straying more than a fraction of a penny from its intended price. That made it an island of stability, a place where traders and investors could stash their funds in between forays into the otherwise frenzied crypto market. This week TerraUSD became part of the frenzy too, slumping by more than a third on Monday and then tumbling as low as 23 cents on Wednesday.…

It’s been a crushing few days for the Terra project, in a week that has been unforgiving for cryptocurrency as a whole. Over the past few days, the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin, which is meant to maintain a dollar peg, uncoupled dramatically from the $1 mark and dropped to a low of less than 30 cents on May 10th. In the latest update to the saga, the beleaguered project put its entire blockchain on halt for around two hours on Thursday, freezing user funds until the blockchain was unpaused. The Terra blockchain was…