IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2207.13914.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Anatomy of a Stablecoin's failure: the Terra-Luna case

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Briola
  • David Vidal-Tom'as
  • Yuanrong Wang
  • Tomaso Aste

Abstract

We quantitatively describe the main events that led to the Terra project's failure in May 2022. We first review, in a systematic way, news from heterogeneous social media sources; we discuss the fragility of the Terra project and its vicious dependence on the Anchor protocol. We hence identify the crash's trigger events, analysing hourly and transaction data for Bitcoin, Luna, and TerraUSD. Finally, using state-of-the-art techniques from network science, we study the evolution of dependency structures for 61 highly capitalised cryptocurrencies during the down-market and we also highlight the absence of herding behaviour analysing cross-sectional absolute deviation of returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Briola & David Vidal-Tom'as & Yuanrong Wang & Tomaso Aste, 2022. "Anatomy of a Stablecoin's failure: the Terra-Luna case," Papers 2207.13914, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2207.13914
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.13914
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. da Gama Silva, Paulo Vitor Jordão & Klotzle, Marcelo Cabus & Pinto, Antonio Carlos Figueiredo & Gomes, Leonardo Lima, 2019. "Herding behavior and contagion in the cryptocurrency market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 41-50.
    2. Chang, Eric C. & Cheng, Joseph W. & Khorana, Ajay, 2000. "An examination of herd behavior in equity markets: An international perspective," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(10), pages 1651-1679, October.
    3. R. Mantegna, 1999. "Hierarchical structure in financial markets," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 11(1), pages 193-197, September.
    4. Whitney K. Newey & Kenneth D. West, 1994. "Automatic Lag Selection in Covariance Matrix Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 631-653.
    5. C. Alexander & M. Dakos, 2020. "A critical investigation of cryptocurrency data and analysis," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 173-188, February.
    6. Chiang, Thomas C. & Zheng, Dazhi, 2010. "An empirical analysis of herd behavior in global stock markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1911-1921, August.
    7. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Bariviera, Aurelio F. & Perez-Laborda, Alejandro, 2021. "Are cryptocurrencies becoming more interconnected?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    8. F. Pozzi & T. Matteo & T. Aste, 2012. "Exponential smoothing weighted correlations," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 85(6), pages 1-21, June.
    9. Cui, Yueting & Gebka, Bartosz & Kallinterakis, Vasileios, 2019. "Do closed-end fund investors herd?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 194-206.
    10. Michele Fratianni & Michael Artis, 1996. "The lira and the pound in the 1992 currency crisis: Fundamentals or speculation?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 573-589, March.
    11. Antonio Briola & Tomaso Aste, 2022. "Dependency structures in cryptocurrency market from high to low frequency," Papers 2206.03386, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gadzinski, Gregory & Castello, Alessio & Mazzorana, Florie, 2023. "Stablecoins: Does design affect stability?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    2. Będowska-Sójka, Barbara & Kliber, Agata, 2022. "Can cryptocurrencies hedge oil price fluctuations? A pandemic perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    3. Vidal-Tomás, David, 2023. "The illusion of the metaverse and meta-economy," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    4. Lennart Ante & Ingo Fiedler & Jan Marius Willruth & Fred Steinmetz, 2023. "A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Research on Stablecoins," FinTech, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-14, January.
    5. Lennart Ante & Aman Saggu, 2024. "Time-Varying Bidirectional Causal Relationships between Transaction Fees and Economic Activity of Subsystems Utilizing the Ethereum Blockchain Network," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-28, January.
    6. Kliber, Agata, 2022. "Looking for a safe haven against American stocks during COVID-19 pandemic," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Briola, Antonio & Vidal-Tomás, David & Wang, Yuanrong & Aste, Tomaso, 2023. "Anatomy of a Stablecoin’s failure: The Terra-Luna case," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    2. Yarovaya, Larisa & Matkovskyy, Roman & Jalan, Akanksha, 2021. "The effects of a “black swan” event (COVID-19) on herding behavior in cryptocurrency markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    3. Scharnowski, Stefan & Shi, Yanghua, 2024. "Intraday herding and attention around the clock," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    4. Vidal-Tomás, David & Briola, Antonio & Aste, Tomaso, 2023. "FTX's downfall and Binance's consolidation: the fragility of centralised digital finance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119902, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. David Vidal-Tom'as & Antonio Briola & Tomaso Aste, 2023. "FTX's downfall and Binance's consolidation: The fragility of centralised digital finance," Papers 2302.11371, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    6. N. Blasco & P. Corredor & N. Satrústegui, 2022. "The witching week of herding on bitcoin exchanges," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-18, December.
    7. Coskun, Esra Alp & Lau, Chi Keung Marco & Kahyaoglu, Hakan, 2020. "Uncertainty and herding behavior: evidence from cryptocurrencies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    8. Guo, Xu & Gu, Chen & Zebedee, Allan A. & Chiu, Li-ting, 2024. "The effect of institutional herding on stock prices: The differentiating role of credit ratings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    9. Lee, Kyuseok, 2017. "Herd behavior of the overall market: Evidence based on the cross-sectional comovement of returns," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 266-284.
    10. Wang, Hu & Li, Shouwei & Ma, Yuyin, 2021. "Herding in Open-end Funds: Evidence from China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    11. Vidal-Tomás, David, 2021. "Transitions in the cryptocurrency market during the COVID-19 pandemic: A network analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    12. Andrikopoulos, Panagiotis & Gebka, Bartosz & Kallinterakis, Vasileios, 2021. "Regulatory mood-congruence and herding: Evidence from cannabis stocks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 842-864.
    13. Huang, Chuangxia & Cai, Yaqian & Yang, Xiaoguang & Deng, Yanchen & Yang, Xin, 2023. "Laplacian-energy-like measure: Does it improve the Cross-Sectional Absolute Deviation herding model?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    14. Alexakis, Christos & Chantziaras, Antonios & Economou, Fotini & Eleftheriou, Konstantinos & Grose, Christos, 2023. "Animal Behavior in Capital markets: Herding formation dynamics, trading volume, and the role of COVID-19 pandemic," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    15. Batmunkh, Munkh-Ulzii & Choijil, Enkhbayar & Vieito, João Paulo & Espinosa-Méndez, Christian & Wong, Wing-Keung, 2020. "Does herding behavior exist in the Mongolian stock market?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    16. Ren, Boru & Lucey, Brian, 2023. "Herding in the Chinese renewable energy market: Evidence from a bootstrapping time-varying coefficient autoregressive model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    17. Papadamou, Stephanos & Kyriazis, Nikolaos A. & Tzeremes, Panayiotis & Corbet, Shaen, 2021. "Herding behaviour and price convergence clubs in cryptocurrencies during bull and bear markets," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    18. Wanidwaranan, Phasin & Padungsaksawasdi, Chaiyuth, 2022. "Unintentional herd behavior via the Google search volume index in international equity markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    19. Rubbaniy, Ghulame & Polyzos, Stathis & Rizvi, Syed Kumail Abbas & Tessema, Abiot, 2021. "COVID-19, Lockdowns and herding towards a cryptocurrency market-specific implied volatility index," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    20. Youssef, Mouna & Waked, Sami Sobhi, 2022. "Herding behavior in the cryptocurrency market during COVID-19 pandemic: The role of media coverage," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2207.13914. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.