OKX, a notable cryptocurrency exchange has removed margin and borrowing services for Terra ecosystem tokens such as Anchor (ANC), Mirror (MIR), Luna (LUNA), and TerraUSD stablecoin (UST).
Confirming the development to CoinDesk, the exchange said it will terminate the exchange-traded UST market for Bitcoin, Avalanche, Solana, and Ether today at 10 am UTC.
Lennix Lai, Director at OKX, explained:
“Seismic crypto market movements like we’ve seen this week tend to deliver some pretty brutal lessons. We’re seeing a flight away from direct investment in DeFi protocols in the wake of UST breakdown. The reality is that centralized exchanges are set up to provide much greater levels of protection for users whatever the markets are doing.”
Meanwhile, the borrowing function, margin trading, and market orders for Terra ecosystem tokens were all closed at 4:00 am UTC on May 13, while perpetual swaps closed at 8:00 UTC.
It has been an extremely terrible week for Terra’s native token LUNA and its stablecoin UST. The stablecoin which is supposed to be pegged to the US dollar crashed to as low as 22 cents. Its sister token LUNA lost 99.9% of its value after slumping from $60 earlier in the week to $0.00 Thursday night.
A number of other exchanges including Binance have halted exchange services for LUNA and UST since Thursday, citing user protection concerns.
