Panic has gripped the Terra and broader stablecoin ecosystem for the past two days. While the UST has yet to re-establish parity with the dollar, and the LUNA has fallen as low as $0.01, the consequences are being felt elsewhere. The Binance platform has delisted the LUNA/USDT futures contract… In favor of the LUNA/BUSD pair.
LUNA: Binance moves from USDT to BUSD
The move is symbolic of the uncertainty currently surrounding stablecoins, following the collapse of the Terra project and its associated tokens. We just learned that the Terra blockchain has been officially shut down, which has only reinforced the doubts of the crypto community.
As a result, non-algorithmic stablecoins, which work very differently from UST, have been affected. At least that’s what happened to Tether (USDT). Although backed by a basket of assets, the stablecoin saw its value touch $0.95 on the day, before recovering to $0.99.
Conversely, other stablecoins saw gains above $1 on a very volatile day, a sign of an exodus of users to cryptocurrencies deemed more secure.
And exchange platform Binance seems to have noticed the trend as well, as it announced today that LUNA/USDT futures contracts would be delisted.
A few hours earlier, the platform had warned that if the price of the LUNA/USDT contracts fell below 0.005 USDT, it would proceed with the delisting.
What is notable, however, is that Binance announced in the same press release that it will launch LUNA/BUSD futures. As a reminder, the BUSD is Binance’s stablecoin. It is backed by dollar reserves, as well as U.S. Treasury bills.
This is a sign of a shakeup underway in the stablecoin sector. Considered safe havens in the cryptocurrency space, they carry a lot of weight. If they falter, the entire market becomes concerned. We’re still in the middle of the story, but it’s possible that the regulatory repercussions will be particularly severe.
