LUNA Drops 20% As Investors Panic, What Is The Link With Anchor And UST?

LUNA has been dropping sharply in the past few days, deeper than larger cryptocurrencies. As of press time, Terra’s native token moves on critical support barely above $50 with a 16.4% loss in the last 24 hours. Related Reading | Terra Announces Non-Profit ‘Luna Foundation Guard’ According to Wu Blockchain, the token lost as much as 20% in the last day. Apparently, retail investors have been panic selling their LUNA funds due to concerns about several of its dApps and UST. The latter is one of many stablecoins operating on the Terra ecosystem which is based on a supply and demand mechanism to maintain its peg. As NewsBTC reported back in December, UST has been gaining relevance across the DeFi sectors. The stablecoin allows holders access to the Anchor Protocol, Terra-based lending and borrowing application that consistently offered its users a 19.5% compounding yield on their UST deposits. This rate surpasses that of its competitors, some of which have issues offering a 10% yield with similar products. However, the current downtrend in the crypto market has heavily impacted LUNA and the Terra ecosystem. Some users believe the ecosystem as a whole could be in danger as a result of a reduction in Anchor’s reserves which according to some projections could reach $0 in the coming weeks. Without these funds, the protocol would be unable to pay off its users and due to Terra’s mechanism, it could trigger a fresh leg down acros...