BlackRock And Citadel Deny Role In Terra's UST Collapse

BlackRock, Inc. BLK and Citadel Securities have denied any involvement in the collapse of Terra’s LUNA/USD algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD UST/USD.

What Happened: According to a Wednesday report from Forbes, both the investment firms said in separate emails that they do not trade stablecoins like UST.

“Rumors that BlackRock had a role in the collapse of UST are categorically false. In fact, BlackRock does not trade UST,” a BlackRock spokesperson said.

The rumors in question refer to a claim that BlackRock and Citadel had borrowed 100,000 Bitcoin BTC/USD worth $3 billion from crypto exchange Gemini to short UST and dump BTC on the market.

We are aware of a recent story that suggested Gemini made a 100K BTC loan to large institutional counter-parties that reportedly resulted in a selloff in $LUNA. Gemini made no such loan.

— Gemini (@Gemini) May 11, 2022

Gemini also issued a statement to set the record straight, clarifying that it had not made any such loan.

The conspiracy theories began circulating that BlackRock and Citadel were behind the “coordinated attack” on Terra’s ecosystem earlier this week after UST lost its peg to the U.S. dollar.

The widely circulated claims were even shared by prominent members of the crypto industry, including Cardano ADA/USD founder Charles Hoskinson.

In a now deleted tweet, the seeker of empirical truth, the champion of peer review, the herald of formal verification @IOHK_Charles spreads an unfounded rumor implicating Citadel, Blackrock, and Gemini in the attack of UST. The tweet was up for 4 hours and got 10k rts... pic.twitter.com/13LhwS6Or3

— cyberhokie.eth (@cyber_hokie) May 11, 2022

See Also: IS TERRA (LUNA) HERE TO STAY?

Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, at the time of writing, LUNA was trading at $0.86, losing 93% of its value over 24 hours. UST was trading below its peg at $0.80.