Luna crash: the May 2022 spiral in numbers

Which 4 numbers describe the Luna crash best?

4 figures carry the story. LUNA reached an all-time high of $119.51 before the crash. It then dropped to virtually zero. UST fell to about 10 cents within a week of 9 May 2022. Almost $45 billion of market capitalisation was wiped out in the same week.

Read together, the 4 numbers show a loss of most of the value of UST and nearly all of the value of LUNA in about 7 days. A normal market correction moves prices by tens of percent over weeks, so the speed of the Luna crash points to a mechanism and not to a simple change of opinion.

What does the $119.51 high of the Luna crash tell a reader?

The all-time high of $119.51 is a price for one LUNA token. A token price alone says little, because the total value depends on how many tokens exist. Market capitalisation, the price multiplied by the supply, is the figure that measures the size of a market.

This matters for the crash, because the supply of LUNA did not stay fixed. A reader who looks only at the fall from $119.51 sees the price. A reader who also tracks supply sees why the price had so little support when selling started, and why a high price does not protect a token from a fast fall.

How did rising LUNA supply feed the Luna crash?

UST relied on a burn and mint equilibrium in which LUNA absorbed volatility. During the crash, holders converted UST into LUNA through the mint and burn system. Each conversion raised the supply of LUNA, and a larger supply spread over the same demand pushed the price down.

A lower LUNA price then made the next conversion bring in even more tokens, which pushed the price down again. This feedback is the core of a spiral. Each step of the fall created the conditions for the next step, so the process sped up instead of slowing down. A spiral has no natural floor until supply stops growing or demand returns, and neither happened in the first week.

Which dated markers frame the Luna crash week in May 2022?

The public record gives 3 firm dates. On 9 May 2022, UST began to lose its dollar peg. Over the following week, UST fell to about 10 cents and LUNA dropped to virtually zero. On 13 May 2022, Terraform Labs temporarily paused the Terra blockchain.

Sources do not give a clean day-by-day price table for the whole week, so this page does not invent one. When you write about the crash, use these dated markers and the weekly totals, and name the source beside each figure so that your reader can follow it. If you need intraday prices, request them from a market data provider and quote that provider.

What do the Luna Foundation Guard bitcoin numbers show?

The Luna Foundation Guard was set up as a non-profit in Singapore in January 2022, with Do Kwon as director. As of 7 May 2022 it held 80,394 bitcoin, worth about $2.4 billion, and bitcoin was its largest reserve holding.

The reserve did not restore the peg. As of 16 May 2022, public sources did not make clear how the bitcoin had been spent. The figure teaches a ratio, and ratios travel well from one case to another: a reserve of $2.4 billion stood against a system that lost almost $45 billion, so the reserve covered only a small part of the loss.

Which losses outside Terra followed the Luna crash?

Three Arrows Capital invested about $200 million in LUNA in February 2022. After the crash it faced a British Virgin Islands liquidation order on 27 June 2022. Voyager reported that the fund had not repaid loans totaling $666 million, and Voyager suspended withdrawals on 1 July 2022.

These numbers show the second round of the Luna crash. A loss on one token became a default on a loan, and the default became a frozen customer account at a lender. Other guides in this series follow each of these later cases.

What happened to LUNA after the crash, in numbers and dates?

On 25 May 2022, a proposal was approved to split the original chain off as Terra Classic, with the token LUNC, and to launch a new chain with a new LUNA, often called Terra 2.0, without UST. The new chain started with a fresh token and a fresh supply.

A fork creates a new token with its own price history. The $119.51 high belongs to the original LUNA, so a reader should keep the 2 series apart when comparing prices before and after May 2022.

How can a reader apply the Luna crash numbers to other tokens?

Ask 4 questions of any token linked to a stablecoin. How does supply change when the price falls? What reserve stands behind the system, and is it larger than a plausible run? Who holds the largest positions? What yield is paid, and from which income? The Luna crash answers each of these with a number.

The EQOS Asia method page explains how a structured score turns such checks into one reading, and the contact page lets you bring a stablecoin question from your own treasury.

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About the author

Stéphane Jambu

President, EQOS Forecast Asia

Stéphane Jambu leads EQOS Forecast Asia and works as a consultant in e-commerce, search visibility, and AI. LinkedIn profile