(Bloomberg) -- Digital-asset turmoil is sweeping through exchange-traded products, with one tracking the troubled Luna token seeing its price almost evaporate in what may be the biggest ETP wipeout ever.
The 21Shares Terra ETP (ticker: LUNA SW) tumbled 99% to 0.01 Swiss Francs on Thursday, having closed at 22.29 Swiss Francs on May 6. That was before the TerraUSD stablecoin, to which Luna is linked, crashed from its dollar peg -- triggering a collapse in Luna’s price. The VanEck Terra ETN (VLNA GR) dropped by a similar magnitude.
While it’s hard to track one-day declines for all ETPs since many end up delisted, it looks like the worst day for a product ever seen, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. In recent years, the implosion of the VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term ETN (XIV) in the “Volmageddon” turmoil of 2018 is one of the few events to come close. That product was liquidated after it dropped 93% in a single session, fueling widespread market turmoil.
TerraUSD (UST) was designed to keep its peg to the dollar through an algorithm-based system through which it can be swapped for Luna, and vice versa, to keep its value stable. When UST crashed from the peg in the past few days, UST’s backers increased the supply of Luna coins in a so far unsuccessful attempt to bring the stablecoin back to $1. The huge increase in supply caused Luna’s price to crater.
The total circulating supply of LUNA has surged to 1.46 billion tokens from 377 million yesterday, data from researcher Messari show.
The 21Shares product tracking Luna now faces the prospect of delisting, Hany Rashwan, chief executive officer of issuer 21shares AG, said in a Telegram message through a spokesperson.
“As LUNA experiences low prices and high volatility it is likely that exchange spreads will continue to widen, which may ultimately lead to delisting on the part of the exchanges,” he said.
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
Advertisement