Case summary
What happened
Anchor Protocol became the flagship yield venue for TerraUSD deposits. The SEC later described UST as being touted as a yield-bearing stablecoin paying as much as 20 percent interest through Anchor Protocol. When UST depegged in May 2022 and LUNA collapsed, Anchor's core UST yield product effectively ended as a usable savings product, though the protocol and community history remain relevant to the Terra collapse.
Customer result
Customer outcome
No recovery
Anchor is classified as a market-collapse yield-product failure. There was no conventional platform bankruptcy estate or centralized repayment process for Anchor depositors in the same sense as CeFi lender bankruptcies.
- Estimated recovery
- not applicable / market-collapse outcome rather than custodial bankruptcy recovery
- Repayment started
- —
- Repayment completed
- —
- Confidence
- Medium
Asset treatment
Terms risk
Varies by product
Classified separately from CeFi custodial lender terms because the central failure mode was TerraUSD depeg and ecosystem collapse, not a platform bankruptcy claims process.
- Affected product
- Anchor UST deposit yield product
- Confidence
- Medium
Anchor users interacted with a DeFi protocol and were exposed primarily to UST market, protocol, and smart-contract risks rather than a centralized custodian balance-sheet claim.
Source: SEC charges Terraform and CEO Do Kwon with defrauding investors in crypto schemes
Known unknowns
Uncertainty
Launch date and end date are operational approximations. The record tracks Anchor as a yield product within the Terra ecosystem, not as a conventional custodial CeFi bankruptcy case.
Chronology
Historical record
Anchor Protocol launches on Terra
Anchor Protocol launched as a Terra-based savings and lending protocol centered on UST deposits and yield generation.
Launch date is based on public ecosystem documentation and should be refined if an official launch announcement is archived.
UST yield product becomes core Anchor use case
Anchor became known for UST deposits marketed around high stablecoin yields, later referenced by the SEC as paying as much as 20 percent interest.
Core yield-product characterization event.
TerraUSD depeg begins
TerraUSD began losing its intended dollar peg in May 2022, triggering a collapse in the Terra ecosystem and undermining Anchor's core UST-denominated yield product.
Start date is the commonly cited market-break period; exact product impacts unfolded over several days.
Anchor yield product becomes economically nonfunctional after Terra collapse
After UST lost its peg and LUNA collapsed, Anchor's savings product no longer functioned as the advertised stablecoin yield venue that had driven its adoption.
Classified as operations_ended for the yield product rather than a formal legal shutdown of a company.
No direct evidence linked to this event yet.
SEC charges Terraform Labs and Do Kwon
The SEC charged Terraform Labs and Do Kwon, describing among other claims how UST was touted as yield-bearing through Anchor Protocol.
Regulatory source establishing the Anchor yield-marketing context.
Source record
Evidence dossier
Filter by claim, reliability, source type, and whether evidence is linked to a specific event.
Entity
1 sourcesAnchor Protocol documentation and ecosystem references
Anchor Protocol documentation
Protocol documentation reference for product identity; regulatory and Reuters sources carry the failure-context claims.
Event
3 sourcesSEC charges Terraform and CEO Do Kwon with defrauding investors in crypto schemes
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2023-02-16
Primary regulatory source describing UST as a yield-bearing stablecoin advertised as paying as much as 20 percent interest through Anchor Protocol.
SEC charges Terraform and CEO Do Kwon with defrauding investors in crypto schemes
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2023-02-16
Primary regulatory source stating that UST depegged in May 2022 and that UST and sister tokens plummeted to close to zero.
Stablecoin TerraUSD collapses as crypto market sell-off deepens
Reuters · 2022-05-12
Reuters market coverage for the May 2022 TerraUSD collapse context.
url history
1 sourcesAnchor Protocol application archive captures
Internet Archive
Archived URL history for the Anchor application domain.
No evidence records match the current filters.
Comparative records