Cryptocurrency luna crashes to $0 as UST falls further from dollar peg; bitcoin rebounds 8%
Bitcoin staged a rebound on Friday, jumping above $30,000 despite the ongoing woes of stablecoin TerraUSD which has caused panic in the crypto market.
The world's largest cryptocurrency bitcoin was trading at around $30,262.85 at 4 a.m. ET on Friday, according to CoinGecko data, up 8% in the last 24 hours after it dropped to levels not seen since late 2020 earlier this week.
The recent crypto meltdown, which has seen billions of dollars wiped off the market, has in large part been sparked by the crash of a controversial stablecoin known as TerraUSD or UST, which is supposed to be pegged one-to-one with the U.S. dollar.
UST and luna are linked. UST is dubbed an algorithmic stablecoin meaning its $1 peg is supposed to be governed by underlying code. That is fundamentally different to other stablecoins like tether and USDC which are backed by real-world assets such as bonds. UST has no real-world reserves.
The UST algorithm works through a complex system of minting and burning tokens to maintain price stability. A UST token is created by destroying some of the related cryptocurrency luna to maintain the dollar peg.
