Terra’s LUNA Has Dropped 99.7% in Under a Week. That’s Good for UST
Traders of Terra’s LUNA tokens saw some of their worst weekly losses in recent months, with prices falling 99.7% in a week, according to data.
The price of LUNA has dropped by 96% in the last 24 hours, to less than 10 cents. It was about $60 earlier this week and a high of $120 in mid-April.
LUNA costs shot up at a fast speed due to a shift in market dynamics. As terraUSD (UST), a Terra-issued stablecoin that’s supposed to be priced 1:1 to the US dollar, lost its peg, LUNA plunged through several support levels.
According to analytics, the selling pressure on LUNA began over the weekend when investors liquidated their winnings on Anchor, a Terra protocol for obtaining UST yields, pushing interest rates lower.
This is due to the way algorithmic stablecoins like UST work. At any time, 1 UST can be redeemed or minted for exactly $1 worth of LUNA. In principle, this aids UST’s value retention and increases demand for both tokens.
Traders can buy and sell LUNA and UST indefinitely in order to preserve the peg and profit, motivating them to do so.
The UST price has dropped this week, to as low as 22 cents yesterday, causing more LUNA to be coined and issued into the open market. LUNA’s circulating supply more than tripled to 1.4 billion tokens on Thursday, according to Messari data, from 377 million two days ago.
The massive increase in supply put selling pressure on LUNA tokens, as evidenced by the price reduction. At the same time, it put UST on the mend, with the tokens regaining 60 cents in the European morning hours of Thursday.
Terra also offered various actions on Thursday to save UST’s peg and keep LUNA from becoming substantially diluted.
LUNA has dropped out of the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization this week, ranking 81st this morning. Last week, the tokens were worth just under $4 billion, but on Thursday, they were only worth $720 million.
Nonetheless, some market experts are optimistic about algorithmic stablecoins’ long-term prospects.