Anchor

Anchor Protocol was a decentralized finance (DeFi) savings protocol launched in March 2021 on the Terra blockchain. Developed by South Korea-based Terraform Labs, its primary mission was to offer a stable, high-yield interest rate on stablecoin deposits, famously targeting around 20% APY on the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin. It functioned as a decentralized money market where users could lend stablecoins to earn yield or borrow them by providing bonded crypto assets as collateral. Anchor became the cornerstone of the Terra ecosystem, attracting tens ofbillions of dollars in deposits. However, the protocol catastrophically collapsed in May 2022 when the UST stablecoin lost its peg to the US dollar, leading to a death spiral with Terra's LUNA token and wiping out billions in value, triggering a wider crypto market crisis.