{"id":9520,"date":"2022-05-09T23:40:51","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T23:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci02a0c5f430002795"},"modified":"2025-01-28T15:47:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T15:47:12","slug":"lfg-bitcoin-reserves-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/markets\/lfg-bitcoin-reserves-at-risk","title":{"rendered":"LFG Bitcoin Reserves At Risk As UST Dollar Peg Collapses"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><p><strong><em>The below is an excerpt from a recent edition of Bitcoin Magazine Pro, <\/em>Bitcoin Magazine&#8217;s<em> premium markets newsletter. To be among the first to receive these insights and other on-chain bitcoin market analysis straight to your inbox, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/bmpro.substack.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>subscribe now<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>UST Dollar Peg Collapses<\/h2>\n<p>What\u2019s been developing over the weekend and has been amplified today is the depegging of the Terra stablecoin (UST) to the U.S. dollar now with Terra currently trading at $0.85. Many of these market dynamics have been playing out in near real time today as the situation worsens and will likely change again over the next 24 hours. It started with billions of dollars in UST leaving the high-yielding Anchor Protocol over the weekend and turned into a full-on digital bank run.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">YIKES<\/p>\n<p>Terra\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/UST?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#UST<\/a> stablecoin has rapidly fallen to $0.98. <\/p>\n<p>Further decline would lead to partial\/full liquidation of LFG\u2019s 40k BTC to support the peg. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yehn588vTr\">pic.twitter.com\/yehn588vTr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Dylan LeClair \ud83d\udfe0 (@DylanLeClair_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DylanLeClair_\/status\/1523699294335016960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">May 9, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>UST relies on the LUNA token to maintain its price through algorithmic minting and burning mechanics. Through this method, an arbitrage opportunity is created when UST is off its $1 peg. Traders can burn LUNA and create new UST when UST is priced over $1 and profit. When UST is below $1, UST gets burned and LUNA is minted to help stabilize the peg. Yet, as UST has suffered a blow to demand and liquidity, LUNA has fallen nearly 26% in just one day while BTC is down nearly 8%.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/luna-1-day-change.png\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p>Why this matters for bitcoin is because the centralized Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) has accumulated 42,530 bitcoin ($1.275 billion at a $30,000 price) as reserves to be used in these exact situations, <a href=\"https:\/\/agora.terra.money\/t\/bitcoin-reserve-pool\/5259\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to defend the UST peg<\/a> when it sustains below the $1. And currently, that is exactly what they are attempting to do.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/usttetherus.png\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p>As a response, the LFG voted earlier today to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LFG_org\/status\/1523512201088143360\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">loan out $750 million of bitcoin and $750 million of UST to OTC trading firms<\/a> in efforts to help sustain the UST peg. Later in the day, the LFG announced a withdrawal of nearly 37,000 BTC to loan out to market makers highlighting that it is currently being used to buy UST.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Below is the new LFG <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%24BTC&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$BTC<\/a> wallet address: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/9t0NX3VEMI\">https:\/\/t.co\/9t0NX3VEMI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Last clip withdrawn by the LFG was ~37K BTC. Similar to the last deployment, it has been loaned to MMs. <\/p>\n<p>Very little of the recent clip has been spent but is currently being used to buy <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%24UST&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$UST<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Updates coming.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; LFG | Luna Foundation Guard (@LFG_org) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LFG_org\/status\/1523766683923451904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">May 9, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Now the main risk to the market is that the biggest buyer of bitcoin over the last couple months will now become the market\u2019s biggest forced seller. The market expectations and potential selling have certainly played a role in bitcoin\u2019s historic selloff today, but it comes at the same time that broader equity markets have been selling off in tandem. Bitcoin\u2019s correlation to broader equity indexes and tech stocks is at historic highs and is following the same market dynamics since November 2021. <\/p>\n<p>As a result of the rise in global interest rates, 40-year high inflation, deteriorating growth and a macro credit sell-off and unwinding unfolding, we\u2019ve been highlighting these dynamics and the larger market risks at hand for months.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/btc-and-nasdaq-futures-1-week.png\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bitcoin-magazine-pro-banner.jpg\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Terra stablecoin becomes depegged from the U.S. dollar, the biggest buyer of bitcoin in recent months could become its biggest forced seller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2787,"featured_media":5613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[85,132,1743,865,2315],"class_list":["post-9520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-markets","tag-bitcoin-magazine-pro","tag-bitcoin-price","tag-luna","tag-stablecoin","tag-terra"],"author_data":{"id":2787,"name":"Sam Rule","nicename":"sam-rule","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/sam-rule-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/img_0298.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2787"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}