IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/137575.html

Anatomy of a run: the Terra Luna Crash

Author

Listed:
  • Liu, Jiageng
  • Makarov, Igor
  • Schoar, Antoinette

Abstract

We examine the dramatic collapse of the Terra blockchain in May 2022. Using granular blockchain data, we show that the run resulted from the interaction of three economic forces: subsidized money creation, real-time observability of transactions, and investor concentration. The early success of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin, UST, was fueled by highly subsidized deposit rates, which attracted many investors but failed to engage them meaningfully with other services. Blockchain transparency allowed investors to observe Terra’s worsening fundamentals and monitor each other’s exits in real time. Larger and sophisticated investors reacted faster to adverse signals and served as catalysts for the run. These findings challenge the idea that blockchain transparency levels the playing field and highlight how greater observability and concentration can amplify financial fragility. Our results contribute to the understanding of the limits of private money creation and the dynamics of runs in fully digital financial systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Jiageng & Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2026. "Anatomy of a run: the Terra Luna Crash," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 137575, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:137575
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/137575/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hasbrouck, Joel, 1995. "One Security, Many Markets: Determining the Contributions to Price Discovery," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1175-1199, September.
    2. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 1998. "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 587-597, June.
    3. Igor Makarov & Antoinette Schoar, 2022. "Cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance (DeFi)," NBER Working Papers 30006, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Igor Makarov & Antoinette Schoar, 2022. "Cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance (DeFi)," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 53(1 (Spring), pages 141-215.
    5. Rajkamal Iyer & Manju Puri, 2012. "Understanding Bank Runs: The Importance of Depositor-Bank Relationships and Networks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1414-1445, June.
    6. Rajkamal Iyer & Manju Puri & Nicholas Ryan, 2016. "A Tale of Two Runs: Depositor Responses to Bank Solvency Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(6), pages 2687-2726, December.
    7. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2020. "Trading and arbitrage in cryptocurrency markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100409, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2020. "Trading and arbitrage in cryptocurrency markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 293-319.
    9. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    10. Paul Glasserman & Behzad Nouri, 2016. "Market‐Triggered Changes in Capital Structure: Equilibrium Price Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 2113-2153, November.
    11. Cookson, J. Anthony & Fox, Corbin & Gil-Bazo, Javier & Imbet, Juan F. & Schiller, Christoph, 2026. "Social media as a bank run catalyst," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    12. Douglas W. Diamond & Philip H. Dybvig, 2000. "Bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 24(Win), pages 14-23.
    13. Jacklin, Charles J & Bhattacharya, Sudipto, 1988. "Distinguishing Panics and Information-Based Bank Runs: Welfare and Policy Implications," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(3), pages 568-592, June.
    14. Lyons, Richard K. & Viswanath-Natraj, Ganesh, 2023. "What keeps stablecoins stable?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    15. Hillion, Pierre & Vermaelen, Theo, 2004. "Death spiral convertibles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 381-415, February.
    16. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:3:p:749-61 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. George Pennacchi & Alexei Tchistyi, 2019. "On Equilibrium When Contingent Capital Has a Market Trigger: A Correction to Sundaresan and Wang Journal of Finance (2015)," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(3), pages 1559-1576, June.
    18. Bryant, John, 1980. "A model of reserves, bank runs, and deposit insurance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 335-344, December.
    19. Itay Goldstein & Ady Pauzner, 2005. "Demand–Deposit Contracts and the Probability of Bank Runs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1293-1327, June.
    20. Chordia, Tarun & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2002. "Order imbalance, liquidity, and market returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 111-130, July.
    21. Martin D.D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Order Flow and Exchange Rate Dynamics," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 6, pages 247-290, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    22. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2022. "Cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (DeFi)," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117711, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    23. Tri Vi Dang & Gary Gorton & Bengt Holmström & Guillermo Ordoñez, 2017. "Banks as Secret Keepers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1005-1029, April.
    24. Barry Eichengreen, 2020. "From Commodity to Fiat and Now to Crypto: What Does History Tell Us?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Bernard Yeung (ed.), DIGITAL CURRENCY ECONOMICS AND POLICY, chapter 4, pages 17-39, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Kristian Blickle & Markus Brunnermeier & Stephan Luck, 2024. "Who Can Tell Which Banks Will Fail?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 37(9), pages 2685-2731.
    2. Nobel Prize Committee, 2022. "Financial Intermediation and the Economy," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2022-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    3. Castillo León, Jaime & Lehar, Alfred, 2026. "What data have told us about decentralized finance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    4. Timmermann, Allan & Wermers, Russ, 2014. "Runs on Money Market Funds," CEPR Discussion Papers 9906, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    5. Molyneux, Philip & Upreti, Vineet & Zhou, Tim, 2023. "Depositor market discipline: New evidence from selling failed banks," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    6. Kristian Blickle & Markus Brunnermeier & Stephan Luck, 2020. "Micro-evidence from a System-wide Financial Meltdown: The German Crisis of 1931," Working Papers 275, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    7. Lawrence Schmidt & Allan Timmermann & Russ Wermers, 2016. "Runs on Money Market Mutual Funds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2625-2657, September.
    8. Dunhong Jin & Marcin Kacperczyk & Bige Kahraman & Felix Suntheim, 2022. "Swing Pricing and Fragility in Open-End Mutual Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(1), pages 1-50.
    9. Carletti, Elena & De Marco, Filippo & Ioannidou, Vasso & Sette, Enrico, 2021. "Banks as patient lenders: Evidence from a tax reform," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 6-26.
    10. Rajkamal Iyer & Manju Puri & Nicholas Ryan, 2016. "A Tale of Two Runs: Depositor Responses to Bank Solvency Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(6), pages 2687-2726, December.
    11. Atmaca, Sümeyra & Schoors, Koen & Verschelde, Marijn, 2020. "Bank loyalty, social networks and crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    12. Hubert János Kiss, 2018. "Depositors’ Behaviour in Times of Mass Deposit Withdrawals," Financial and Economic Review, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 17(4), pages 95-111.
    13. Xavier Vives, 2014. "Strategic Complementarity, Fragility, and Regulation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(12), pages 3547-3592.
    14. Qi Chen & Itay Goldstein & Zeqiong Huang & Rahul Vashishtha, 2024. "Liquidity Transformation and Fragility in the U.S. Banking Sector," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(6), pages 3985-4036, December.
    15. Bank for International Settlements, 2026. "Literature review on non-maturity deposit stability: Established factors and recent developments," BCBS Working Papers 47, Bank for International Settlements.
    16. Assaf Razin & Itay Goldstein, 2012. "Review Of Theories of Financial Crises," 2012 Meeting Papers 214, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Ryuichiro Izumi, 2021. "Opacity: Insurance and Fragility," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 40, pages 146-169, April.
    18. repec:rza:wpaper:755 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Zhiguo He & Wei Xiong, 2012. "Dynamic Debt Runs," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(6), pages 1799-1843.
    20. Toni Ahnert & Ali Kakhbod, 2017. "Information Choice and Amplification of Financial Crises," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(6), pages 2130-2178.
    21. Trautmann, Stefan T. & Vlahu, Razvan, 2013. "Strategic loan defaults and coordination: An experimental analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 747-760.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    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:ehl:lserod:137575. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.