Because the starting of the week, Terra’s UST stablecoin has seen a significant crash de-pegging from the USD. On the similar time, Terra’s native cryptocurrency LUNA has corrected by over 80% within the final 4 days.
Amid all of the massacre, speculations have been rising that there was a coordinated assault on the UST stablecoin. The preliminary report suggests {that a} single attacker bought $285 million UST stablecoins on Curve and Binance.
Nevertheless, the attacker may have made greater than $800 million from this coordinated assault. A preferred on-chain analyst that goes by the identify Onchain Wizard on Twitter has revealed a latest thread explaining the potential for how the attacker may have exploited the LUNA-UST-BTC ecosystem.
Again in March, the Luna Basis Guard (LFG), Terra’s mother or father agency, introduced that they are going to be shopping for $10 billion price of Bitcoin reserves to safeguard the steadiness of its UST stablecoin. This was when the attacker acquired lively says Onchain Wizard. Additionally, the 4pool Frax announcement for UST, helped the attacker to execute the technique. Making a sensible guess, he additional explains:
“We don’t know when the attacker borrowed 100k BTC to start out the place, apart from that it was bought into Kwon’s shopping for (nonetheless hypothesis). LFG purchased 15k BTC between March twenty seventh and April eleventh, so lets simply take the typical value between these dates ($42k)”.
In consequence, the attacker had constructed $4.2 billion in Bitcoin brief positions by April 11. Concurrently, the attacker additionally builds $1 billion in over-the-counter (OTC) place in UST. Now, this units the stage to liquidate the UST and concurrently brief the Bitcoin, figuring out the truth that LFG will promote its Bitcoins to guard the UST peg.
The Actual Sport of UST Assault Begins
LFG initially removes $150 million in liquidity in anticipation of 4pool. The liquidity pull occurs on Could 8. On the similar time, the attacker makes use of $350 million of UST to empty the Curve liquidity. This begins de-pegging the UST pushing it right down to $0.97.
Later, the Luna Basis Guard (LFG) additionally begins promoting its Bitcoin from reserves to guard the peg. This places downward strain on Bitcoin. Now with the Curve liquidity drained, the attacker begins offloading the rest of $650 million from the $1 billion OTC UST place, on Binance. Onchain Wizard explains:
“So LFG is promoting $BTC to revive the peg whereas the attacker is promoting $UST on Binance. Ultimately, the chain will get congested and the CEXs droop withdrawals of $UST, fueling the financial institution run panic. $UST de-pegs to 60c on the backside, whereas $BTC bleeds out”.
Now with robust UST liquidations, LUNA value begins to break down due to Terra’s algorithmic mechanism. Over the past month, the Bitcoin value has dropped from $42K to now at $32K.
Now if the attacker may need coated his/her 100K BTC brief positions at $32K, they might have remodeled $950 million. After all, the attacker would have made some losses on the UST dump, nevertheless, that will be very minor. Onchain Wizard explains:
“On the $350mm of $UST curve dumps I don’t assume they took a lot of a loss, lets assume 3% or simply $11m. And lets assume that every one the Binance dumps have been finished at 80c, thats one other $125mm price of doing enterprise. For a grand whole revenue of $815mm (bf borrow price)”.
The analyst additional explains that any brief on LUNA would have made the attacker extra income. As soon as once more our main shoutout to Onchain Wizard for this insightful thread.
The right way to make a >800 million {dollars} in crypto attacking the as soon as third largest stablecoin, Soros type:
Everyone seems to be speaking in regards to the $UST assault proper now, together with Janet Yellen. However nobody is speaking about how a lot cash the attacker made (or how sensible it was). Lets dig in🧵 pic.twitter.com/nGVfqjpVJb
— Onchain Wizard (@OnChainWizard) May 10, 2022
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