What is a depeg?
A depeg happens when a stablecoin moves meaningfully away from the value it is designed to track. The important question is not only how far it moved, but what happened next.
A token designed to track one US dollar may trade below or above that target. Small and brief moves happen regularly; not all of them deserve a separate historical entry. A depeg becomes notable when it is large, sustained, widely documented, connected to reserve or redemption problems, or important to the stablecoin’s later history.
Outcome matters. USDC lost its peg during the March 2023 banking crisis and later recovered. UST / TerraUSD lost its peg during a collapse and did not return as a functioning stablecoin. Those events should not be described in the same way.
| Size and duration | How far did the price or redemption value move, and how long did the deviation last? |
|---|---|
| Cause | Was the event linked to bank exposure, reserve concerns, liquidations, protocol design, market panic, or another trigger? |
| Redemption | Could holders redeem with the issuer or protocol, and were there delays, limits, or suspensions? |
| Recovery | Did the stablecoin return close to its target, and did normal operations resume? |
| Long-term outcome | Did the event lead to a wind-down, migration, discontinued product, or complete failure? |
| Minor movement | Usually omitted unless it became historically significant. |
|---|---|
| Recovered depeg | Recorded as an event while the stablecoin may remain active. |
| Unresolved depeg | Recorded with the recovery state left open when the outcome is unclear. |
| Collapse | Recorded separately when the stablecoin no longer functions as intended. |
USDC in March 2023
A recovered depeg linked to banking exposure.
UST in May 2022
A collapse that ended the original stablecoin’s function.
Status and event records
Why a past incident and a current status are kept separate.